September 23, 1922] 



NA TURE 



421 



therefore, and without reference to prospective occupa- 

 tion or profession, or direct connexion with possible 

 university courses to follow. Less than 3 per cent, of 

 the pupils from our State-aided secondary schools 

 proceed to universities, yet most of the science courses 

 in these schools are based upon syllabuses of the type 

 of university entrance examinations — syllabuses of 

 sections of physics or chemistry, botany, zoology, and 

 so forth — suitable enough as preliminary studies of a 

 professional type to be extended later, but in no sense 

 representing in scope or substance what should be 

 placed before young and receptive minds as the scientific 

 portion of their general education. Such teaching 

 excuses the attitude of many modern Gallios among 

 schoolboys caring " for none of those things." The 

 needs of the manv are sacrificed to the interests of the 

 few, with the result that much of the instruction is 

 inept and futile whether judged by standards of en- 

 lightenment or of stimulus. Exceptional pupils may 

 profit by it, but to others, and particularly to teachers 

 of literary subjects in the school curriculum, it often 

 appears trivial or sordidly practical, and is usually 

 spiritless — a means by which man may gain the whole 

 world, but will lose his soul in the process. 



This impression is not altogether unjust, and the 

 teaching of recent years has tended to accentuate it. 

 The extent of school science is determined by what 

 can be covered by personal observation and experiment 

 — a principle sound enough in itself for training in 

 scientific method, but altogether unsuitable to define 

 the boundaries of science in general education. Yet 

 it is so used. Every science examination qualifying 

 for the First School Certificate, which now represents 

 subjects normally studied up to about sixteen years of 

 age, is mainly a test of practical acquaintance with 

 facts and principles encountered in particular limited 

 fields, but not a single one affords recognition of a 

 broad and ample course of instruction in science such 

 as is requited in addition to laboratory work. I have 

 not the slightest intention or desire to suggest that 

 practical work can be dispensed with in the teaching 

 of any scientific subject, but I do urge that it becomes 

 a fetish when it controls the range of view of the realm 

 of natural knowledge capable of being opened for the 

 best educational ends during school life. 



It is now generally recognised by educationists that 

 up to the age of about sixteen years there should be 

 no specialisation in school studies. The First School 

 Examination was organised with this end in view, and 

 seven examining bodies have been approved by the 

 Board of Education to test the results of instruction 

 given in (1) English subjects, (2) languages, (3) mathe- 

 matics and science, which constitute the three main 

 groups in which candidates are expected to show a 

 reasonable amount of attainment. The number of 

 candidates who presented themselves at examinations 

 of the standard of First School Certificates last year 

 was about 42,000 ; and of this number, 12,500 took 

 papers in sections of physics, 13,000 in chemistry, 

 11,400 in botany, 5000 physics and chemistry combined 

 under experimental science, 113 natural history of 

 animals, 31 geology, and 3 zoology. 



These numbers may W taken as a fair representation 

 of the science subjects studied in most of our secondary 

 schools, and they suggest that general scientific teach- 



NO. 2760, VOL. I 10] 



ing is almost non-existent. Botany is a common 

 subject in girls' schools, but the instruction in science 

 for boys is limited to parts of physics and chemistry. 

 The former subject is usually divided into mechanics 

 and hydrostatics ; heat ; sound and light ; and 

 electricity and magnetism ; and candidates are expected 

 to reach a reasonable standard in two of these sections. 

 They may, therefore, and often do, leave school when 

 their only introduction to science is that represented 

 by the study of mechanics and heat, and without the 

 slightest knowledge of even such a common instrument 

 as an electric bell, while the ever-changing earth 

 around them, and the place of man in it, remain as 

 pages of an unopened book. They ask for bread, and 

 are given a stone. General science covering a wide 

 field is practically unknown as a school subject, and 

 even general physics rarely finds a place in the curricu- 

 lum because questions set in examinations are, to quote 

 from the Cambridge Locals Regulations, " principally 

 such as will test the candidate's knowledge of the 

 subject as gained from a course of experimental 

 instruction." 



One or two examining bodies have introduced general 

 science syllabuses covering the rudiments of physics 

 and chemistry as well as of plant and animal life, but 

 even in these cases most of the subjects must be studied 

 experimentally, and no place is found for any other 

 means of acquiring knowledge. The result is that few 

 schools find it worth while from the point of view of 

 examination successes to attempt to cover such schemes 

 of work. Moreover, no clear principle can be discerned 

 by which the syllabuses are constructed. General 

 science should be more than an amorphous collection 

 of topics from physics and chemistry, with a little 

 natural history thrown in as a sop to biologists. It 

 should provide for good reading as well as for educa- 

 tional observation and experiment ; should be human- 

 istic as well as scientific. The subject which above 

 all others has this double aspect is geography ; so truly, 

 indeed, is this the case that in the First School Examina- 

 tions it may be offered in either the English or the 

 Science group. A school course which would cover all 

 the science required for the study of geography con- 

 ceived as a branch of knowledge concerned with the 

 natural environment of man and the inter-relations 

 between him and those circumstances would not only 

 be educational in the broadest sense, but would also 

 be the best groundwork for effective teaching of 

 geography, history, and other humanistic studies. It 

 would make science a natural part of a vertebrate 

 educational course instead of specialised and exclusive 

 as it tends to be at present. 



It cannot be reasonably suggested that the order in 

 which the usual sections of physics are prescribed has 

 any relation to mental growth, or that the topics 

 selected from them are such as appeal to early interests. 

 Few pupils of their own volition wish to determine 

 specific gravities, investigate the laws of motion, 

 calculate specific and latent heats, and so on, at the 

 stage of instruction in science at which these matters 

 are usually studied, and from the point of view of 

 educational value most of them would be more profit- 

 ably employed in becoming acquainted with as wide 

 a range as possible of common phenomena and every- 

 day tilings — all considered as qualities to stimulate 



