236 



NA TURE 



[January 5, 1899 



(as at Battersea this year) the teacher with a selected band of 

 students is working out a Royal Society grant for research, or 

 (as at Chelsea) graduates of more than one University are 

 preparing their theses for the doctor's degree. 



Six of the polytechnics now possess day schools and these have 

 together about i6cx3 pupils, who are chiefly between twelve and 

 fifteen years of age. Two of them are mi.\ed schools for boys 

 and girls, one has separate departments for the sexes, and three 

 are confined to boys. They are in the main to be regarded as 

 technical continuation schools. Seven day schools of a special 

 type — -the Domestic Economy School — are also attached to 

 various polytechnics. In these the whole time of the pupil is 

 spent in the study and practice of cookery, dressmaking, plain 

 needlework, laundry work, and housewifery, with some 

 elementary lessons in the chemistry of food and the physiology 

 of hygiene. At Chelsea there is also a training school for 

 servants. 



At least 5000 workmen are at present attending the trade 

 classes in connection with the London polytechnics. Not only 

 is there a class in each branch of the building, engineering and 

 metal, furniture, book and printing, and clothing trades, but 

 also in such miscellaneous trades as baking, basket-making, and 

 gas manufacture. 



One polytechnic after another has found itself pushed into 

 providing day instruction of various kinds, by the demand of 

 students lor whom evening classes are inaccessible or unnecessary. 

 Thus the Battersea Polytechnic has regular day courses in 

 mathematics and science, building and machine construction, 

 woodwork and metal-work. The East London Technical College 

 and the Regent Street Polytechnic have each a regular day 

 engineering department, which turns out fully equipped engineers 

 and electricians. At Regent Street a day architectural school 

 has just been added. The Birkbeck Institution has a rapidly 

 growing day department in natural science, including systematic 

 courses in physics, chemistry, and biolog)-. There are also day 

 classes in Latin, (Ireek, and French, up to the standard of the 

 B A. degree of London University. At Chelsea there is a fully 

 developed Technical Day College for men and another for 

 women. 



More than one provincial city, proud of its "University 

 College," counts fewer systematic day students than a single 

 London Polytechnic. 



In the science laboratories of the polytechnics every attempt is 

 made to render the instruction both practical and scientific, and 

 in addiiion to the crowds of elementary pupils there is generally 

 a small body of enthusiastic advanced students who spend every 

 hour they can spare in the laboratory, carrying on original 

 research under the personal direction of the lecturers and 

 demonstrators. This is sometimes sysiematised into what, in 

 a German University, would be called a "Seminar." The 

 research course at the Chelsea Polytechnic, under the direction 

 of Mr. Herbert Tomlinson, F.R.S., may he cited. 



The subject selected for the first research is " The effect of 

 repeated heating on the magnetic permeability and electrical 

 conductivity of iron and steel." The investigations are being 

 accompanied by demonstrations and lectures on (i) the best 

 methods of annealing iron and steel and the faults incidental 

 thereto ; (2) the determination of magnetic permeability both 

 by ballistic and magnetometric methods ; (3) the determination 

 of the electrical conductivity of magnetic metals ; (4) the critical 

 temperature of irim and its alloy.s. 



The method of conducting the research is, too, worthy of 

 mention. To begin with, the principal selects some suitable 

 subject, and fully explains to the cla-ss his reasons for such 

 selection. He then gives a brief history of what has been 

 previously done round and about the subject, and propounds a 

 mode or modes of attacking the research, inviting criticisms 

 from the class. The mode of attack having been decided upon, 

 the class is expected not only to take part in the experiments 

 but to help in making necessary apparatus. Should the results 

 obtained be of sulhcient importance, they are to be ofl'ered in 

 the form of a paper to such societies as the Royal .Society, the 

 Physical Society, or the Institution of Electrical Engineers. 



Enough has been culled from .Mr. .Sidney Webb's paper to 

 show that the London I'olytechnic is a pure addition to the 

 educational system, neither competing with nor superseding 

 existing institutions. There art, among all the 50,000 members 

 and students of these new establishments, probably not a dozen 

 who would have been found joining University or King's 

 College had the polytechnics never come into existence. There 



NO. 1523. VOL. 59] 



is, Mr. Webb says, ever)' indication that the whole 50,000 

 are a net gain, and repre.sent the arrival of a poorer class of 

 students than the University Colleges have as yet reached. 



Science in Giri.s' Schools. 

 Mrs. Bryant, headmistress of the North London Collegiate 

 School for Ciirls, in a paper on "The curriculum of a girls" 

 school," while admitting that the scientific interest arises 

 almost as early in a child's mind as the literary and human 

 interests, lays it down that the power to satisfy it develops much 

 more slowly, so that the progress made is comparatively 

 insignificant, even when the time spent is considerable and the 

 methods sound. Nevertheless, it is recognised that the youngest 

 children of school age are capable of elementary work in natural 

 history. Such work at the beginning can hardly be called 

 natural science, but it is of the nature of science if rightly 

 carried out. -An hour a week, increasing to two hours, may 

 thus be profitably spent. At eleven or twelve children enter on 

 physical science by very simple experimental investigations of 

 the properties of matter. The ideal of the school curriculum in 

 physical science is, it is suggested, a course of general elementary 

 physics, starting with easy measurements and leading up to 

 chemical problems, and eventually to chemistry. Mrs. Bryant 

 thinks it is better for girls to carry on chemistry as a special 

 study than to pursue any of the physical branches to the same 

 extent. It has been found that backward pupils, and those who 

 enter school late, get their best chance of science by the pursuit of 

 botany and natural history as regular studies, with occasional 

 courses on quasi-scientific subjects, like hygiene. All the pupils 

 should, at some period of their course, deal with the application 

 of science to life in some form, hence, short series of lessons, 

 during one term, on hygiene and domestic economy, should be 

 arranged. An interesting note by Miss Edith Aitkin, the science 

 mistress in the school of which Mrs. Bryant is headmistress, 

 gives in detail how the science teaching in the North London 

 Collegiate -School for Girls is carried out. 



The Heuristic Meihod of Teaching. 



The art of making children discover things for themselves is 

 the meaning Prof. Armstrong applies to the expression Heuristic 

 method of teaching, and he contributes a very suggestive article 

 on this theme to the second volume of the reports. After what 

 is best described as an autobiographical account of his gradually 

 developed belief in this system. Prof. Armstrong sketches 

 historically the work of the British Association Committee and 

 the Incorporated Association of Head -Masters in formulating a 

 scientific and logical introduction to physical and chemical 

 studies. In 1S88 the British .Association Committee reported 

 at the Bath meeting, that the replies received to a letter 

 addres.sed to the headmasters of schools in which chemistry was 

 taught — " have put them in possession of the -ictual facts con- 

 nected with the teaching of chemistry in schools, and have made 

 it clear that something should be done in the direction of pro- 

 moting a more uniform and satisfactory treatment of the subject. 

 The Committee think that some suggestions might now be made 

 as to the method of teaching chemistry which should be followed 

 in schools. If this can be done, it will certainly confer a great 

 benefit on both teachers and examiners, and will be likely to 

 lead to a more emphatic recognition of the merits of the science 

 as an instrument of elementary education." 



Two years later the same Committee recorded that — "it 

 cannot be too strongly insisicd that elementary physical science 

 should be taught from the first as a branch of mental educa- 

 tion, and not mainly as useful kihowledge. It is a subject 

 which, when taught with this object in view, is capable of 

 developing mental qualities that are not aroused, and indeed 

 are frequently deadened, by the exhaustive study of languages, 

 history, and mathematics. In order that the study of physical 

 science may effect this mental education, it is necessary that it 

 should be employed to illustrate the scientific method in in- 

 vestigating n.ature, by means of observation, experiment and 

 reasoning with the aid of hypothesis ; the learners should be 

 put into the altitude of discoverers, and should themselves be 

 made to perform many of the experiments." 



In 1895 a committee, appointed by the Incorporated Associa- 

 tion of Headmasters, prepared a detailed syllabus of instruction 

 in elementary physics and chemistry on the lines sketched out 

 by the British -Association Committee, and this syllabus was 

 adopted by the headmasters in 1896. This detailed schedule 

 has had a marked effect, both upon the personal teaching in 



