26o 



NA JURE 



[January i6, 190; 



here the examples which Mr. Organ cited, since they have been 

 many times referred to in Natctre. The Technical Education 

 Board could profitably expend, said the chairman, two millions 

 on the improvement of the provision for research in the chemical 

 and engineering sciences alone. 



Hygiene as a School Subject. 



Papers were read by Miss Alice Ravenhill, on the teaching of 

 hygiene, and by Dr. Krancis Warner, on mental school hygiene. 

 The former paper discussed several i)oints. Can our schools 

 be made to contribute to the work of raising the standard of 

 health in the country? If it is desirable to teach hygiene in 

 schools, how will the curriculum be affected by the addition of 

 this subject? In what grades of schools should hygiene find a 

 place, and what are the best methods of teaching it? It was 

 rightly pointed out that hygiene is really the application to the 

 health of the individual of most other sciences, and that in- 

 struction in physics and chemistry may very well be given a 

 useful bias by pointing out their applications in the particular 

 problems with which hygiene is concerned. Miss Ravenhill 

 compared the teaching ot hygiene in this country with what 

 she had seen in the American schools during her recent visit to 

 the States, and indicated several customs which might very well 

 be imitated by English teachers. 



Dr. Warner explained how the study of mental hygiene could 

 be made to assist the work of the teacher. Since all mental 

 action is expressed in movement and its results, the teacher can, 

 by noting carefully the expression, balance and action in move- 

 ment and response, of the pupil, learn much of the modes of 

 action in the brain centres. 



Natural History Teaching. 



At the second meeting the chair was taken by Prof. Tilden, 

 F.'R.S.,whoin thecourse of his remarks gave it as his opinion that 

 every educated man should possess a broad general acquaintance 

 with the facts of biological science, and that consequently all boys 

 and girls should have an opportunity of studying natural history. 

 The best time for such study is probably in the holidays, for m 

 tliese days of crowded school time-tables and compulsory 

 organised games the children have no leisure hours in term 

 time. This holiday work should not be in the hands of the 

 ordinary school staffs, who cannot dispense with the rest of 

 vacation weeks, but be under the care of special holiday 

 instructors. 



Addresses were delivered by Mr. F. E. Beddard, F. R.S., on 

 the teaching of natural history, and by Prof. W. B. Bottomley, 

 on the value of natural history collections for teaching purposes. 

 Both speakers gave a nuinber of reasons why natural history 

 should be taught in schools, urging that in educative influence it 

 is second to no subject. Mr. Beddard maintained that the teach- 

 ing should be in the hands of experts, who might very well be 

 itinerant lecturers visiting each schoolonceor twice a week. He 

 showed by means of a brief comparison of the horse and the 

 donkey how natural history teaching can be conducted on re- 

 search lines ahd so form an excellent way of training the 

 observation and reasoning powers. He also made it clear that 

 there need not be much expense attending the introduction of 

 natural history into school leaching. Prof. Bottomley distin- 

 guished between natural history collections and museums; while 

 the former are capable of assisting the teacher very much, the 

 ordinary museum is of little value. The natural surroundings 

 of all animals exhibited should be imitated as closely as possible, 

 and the objects should be typical of the neighbourhood in the 

 first place, but be supplemented by others characteristic of the 

 great divisions of the animal kingdom. 



Schemes of Nature-Sludy. 

 The principal of the University of London, Prof. A. W. 

 Kiicker, F.R.S., presided at the third meeting. Mr. R. 

 Hedger- Wallace described American systems of nature-study. 

 He followed the cla.ssification of the methods in common use in 

 the United Slates which was recently made by Prof. Hodge, of 

 Clark University, and gave the distinguishing characteristics of 

 each of the eleven divisions recognised by Prof. Hodge. Most 

 of the American schemes of nature-study are marked by an un- 

 desirable pretentiousness which teachers in this country would 

 do well to avoid. Perhaps the best of the American methods 

 is that of Cornell University, drawn up by Prof. Bailey, and 

 many of the schedules and instructions issued to teachers through- 

 out the States by the authorities of Cornell University might 



NO. 1681, VOL. 65] 



be copied in this country with great advantage to the teaching 

 of nature-study in our own rural schools. Mr. Hedger-Wallace 

 particularly condemned the sentimentality developed by much 

 of the teaching in American .schools. 



Mr. D. Houston gave an eminently practical account or 

 the plan for teaching nature-study in schools which he has 

 worked out for the Essex County Council. In this scheme it 

 is rightly recognised that the success of any method depends 

 ultimately upon the equipment and enthusiasm of the instructor. 

 Consequently great stress is, in Essex, laid upon the preparation 

 of teachers for their work. A three years' course has been in- 

 augurated, and in the first two of these teachers are trained by 

 lectures and laboratory work in the branches of science which 

 underlie any serious work in nature-study ; while in the third 

 year the student prepares a detailed monograph upon a special 

 plant, a course which is found to give an insight into the 

 methods of research and to help the teachers to put the children 

 into the right attitude towards the work. Mr. Houston ex- 

 hibited an interesting series of exercises performed by teachers 

 in training and by children in schools, which showed very 

 conclusively that the work in Essex is being done on scientific 

 lines. 



Prof. Riicker summarised the addresses and indicated the 

 lines the subsequent discussion might profitably take. He in- 

 sisted that, in the education of children, science must be brought 

 into close connection with art and literature. Science should 

 teach how to observe and how to reason from the observations 

 made, but for the due expression of what has in this way been 

 learnt a course in drawing and literature is imperative. He 

 also pointed out that while schemes of study which have been 

 found to work well in some schools in certain circumstances 

 are valuable to all teachers, such courses of study must not be 

 adopted en hloc by teachers. Every instructor should be con- 

 tinually improving his scheme of study, modifying it to meet the 

 peculiar needs of his own classes. 



During the short discussion which followed, Dr. Gladstone, 

 F.K.S., referred to the work under the London School Board 

 which he helped to systematise. 



Technical Education in Rural Districts. 



In the absence of the Countess of Warwick, Prof. H. E. 

 Armstrong, F.R.S , presided at the concluding meeting of the 

 conference. Mr. Hennesey, the principal of Lady Warwick's 

 .School, Bigods Hall, Dunmow, described the equipment and 

 curriculum of his school, which he explained was a school of 

 science in which the courses of study for rural schools drawn up 

 by the Board of Education were adopted. The school at Bigods 

 is attended by both boys and girls, and no disadvantages have 

 been found to result from the plan of co-education. Mr. 

 Hennesey explained that a difficulty is experienced when the 

 third year is reached, since it is found that only 50 per cent, 

 of the third-year students intend to remain in the country to 

 take up agricultural and horticultural pursuits. Instead of 

 making the work of the third and fourth years purely technical 

 a compromise is effected, so that those children who will work 

 in urban centres may not suffer. Purely technical subjects are 

 excluded, and great care is taken to make all subjects as educa- 

 tive as possible. It has not been found that the general educa- 

 tion of the pupils suffers from the agricultural bias given to the 

 teaching. 



Prof. Meldola, F.R.S., passed in review the pioneer work 

 in secondary and technical education in rural districts which has 

 been accomplished in Es.sex. He concerned himself chiefly 

 with the difliculties which have been overcome. He said that 

 the sporadic teaching of insufticiently educated adults which is 

 so common in many counties does little good. The best kind 

 of technical education is that given by experts to classes of 

 suitably trained youths. Rural technical education will not be 

 satisfactory until an intimate connection between the elementary 

 and secondary school is established. At present few children 

 from the elementary school pass on for a further period of study 

 to the secondary school provided, like the school at Bigods, 

 with every facility for teaching the broad principles of agricul- 

 tural and horticultural practice. A thorough system of scholar- 

 ships by which the best children of the elementary school could 

 pass on to the secondary school would have excellent results. 



Prof. Armstrong, in bringing the conference to a close, insisted 

 that the success of schemes of technical instruction is in no 

 way proportionate to the costliness of the equipment. Simple 

 appliances are best, and workshops are more productive of good 



