304 



NA TURE 



[May 13, 190Q 



seven new species of fungi. This group is the least 

 fully dealt with. Perhaps this is due to its com- 

 parative economic unimportance in the Faeroes, where 

 the agriculture is in a very backward state. Thus 

 the land, as is still the case in some parts of the 

 west of Ireland, is too often allowed to seed itself 

 after a barley crop. 



F. Borgesen describes '^fZi, species of fresh-water 

 algae, exclusive of diatoms, showing a comparatively 

 rich flora. The fresh-water diatoms listed by E. 

 Ostrup number 269. This writer also reports on the 

 marine diatoms, and sees in them no slight resem- 

 blance to the coastal diatoms of Greenland. The 

 marine algse are very thoroughly considered by F. 

 Borgesen. His accompanying notes and figures are 

 valuable, and his report deserves publication as a 

 separate treatise fof the sake of algologists. Ftictts 

 serratus and Saccorhiza biilbosa do not reach the 

 Faeroes. Halosphaera viridis is plentiful. Several 

 perforating algse are recorded. 



In the discussion of the origin of the Faeroese 

 flora there is a healthy difference of opinion. Warm- 

 ing and others decide in favour of the view of its 

 origin by the agency of wind, ocean currents, and 

 migrating birds. Others, including Ostenfeld and 

 Jensen, believe that the flora arrived along a post- 

 Glacial land-bridge from Scotland. Suflicient has, we 

 hope, been said to show that the Danish botanists 

 have prepared a satisfactory account of the flora of 

 the Faeroes, and, in addition, have made an important 

 contribution to the study of phytogeographv and 

 plant ecology. T. J. 



SCIENCE TEACHING IN GERMAN SCHOOLS. 

 Sammlung Naturwissenschaftlich-padagogischer Ab- 



handlungen. Edited by Prof. O. Schmeil and Prof. 



VV. B. Schmidt. Bd. ii. (Berlin : B. G. Teubner, 



1908.) Price 12 marks. 

 ' I 'HE volume contains eight essays dealing with 

 -•■ various scientific subjects — chemistry, natural 

 history, &c. — from the schoolmaster's point of view 

 — that is to say, the writers are concerned with the 

 organisation of the school curriculum and with the 

 problem of how to make their respective subjects 

 appeal to boys, or, perhaps, as a German would prefer 

 to put it, how to make scientific instruction educative. 

 Whilst the essays are entirely independent of each 

 other, several of them are written from the Her- 

 bartian standpoint, which means that a writer on 

 chemistry in the school is not satisfied with discussing 

 the question of his immediate business — giving the 

 boys an understanding knowledge of chemistry — he 

 must also discuss the relation of the subject and the 

 method of its presentation, to the formation of char- 

 acter, under which head much that the average 

 Englishman would take for granted is somewhat sen- 

 tentiously set forth. 



The leading place in the volume is given to an 

 article on the importance of experiment in the teach- 

 ing of chemistry. We should not expect to find any- 

 thing of the kind in an English book, for the simple 

 reason that, both in theory and in practice, we have 

 NO. 2063, VOL. 80] 



long since abandoned the attempt to teach science in 

 the schools without well-equipped laboratories and 

 lecture-rooms. Rightly or wrongly, the German tax- 

 master has not felt justified in calling upon the people 

 to provide the costly apparatus necessary. Four years 

 ago it was possible to find even a Berlin Oberreal- 

 schule almost destitute of all we regard as sine qua 

 noil for the adequate teaching of science. Of course, 

 the German will reply thr.t it has not been a question 

 of parsimony in education. What has been saved in 

 the schools has been spent in the scientific equipment 

 of the universities. The question of where the money 

 may be most advantageously laid out is one which 

 we have not, perhaps, considered very carefully, or, 

 having considered it, those who decide these matters 

 have come to a conclusion strikingly different from 

 that of Prussia and other German States. 



What is true of the higher schools of Germany is 

 true also of the training colleges, in many of which 

 there is no provision for practical work in science. 

 The fact that the elementary-school teachers had no 

 acquaintance with the handling of scientific apparatus 

 led a recent advocate of chemistry in the primary 

 school to make a rather quaint suggestion. Why 

 should the teachers not avail themselves of the facili- 

 ties afforded by the nearest chemist's shop? There 

 they might learn the art of experimentation so far 

 as it is necessary to the teaching of the elementary 

 facts of the subject. It does not appear that the 

 suggestion has found favour in the eyes of the 

 teachers ! 



Some of the most interesting essays in the volume 

 are concerned to change the character of school science 

 from that of a mere accumulation of facts selected 

 and systematiscd from a restricted standpoint to a 

 form in which the work is directed to the realisation 

 of a great general principle, or in which procedure 

 is determined by the question of what general prob- 

 lems are accessible to the minds of the pupils at 

 various stages in their intellectual development. 

 Particularly interesting in this regard is the one en- 

 titled " Der dynamologische Lehrgang," in which 

 the author sketches at considerable length a course 

 of science for boys from eleven to fourteen. Nature 

 is always a happening, a becoming, or a dissolving, 

 and nature knowledge is really nothing else than 

 clearness concerning processes — growing, breathing, 

 blossoming, fading away. Indeed, every object in 

 nature is a summation of processes, and only when 

 we regard it in this way can there be a scientific 

 study of nature. 



In school, particularly, the science-teacher is to 

 keep the unity of nature steadily before the children's 

 minds, and he should frame his syllabus to bring out 

 the connectedness of natural phenomena in a system- 

 atic way. The botanist does not usually regard a 

 knowledge of the movements of the air as an essential 

 preliminary to lessons on modes of fertilisation, nor 

 would a teacher dealing with air-currents and their 

 causes usually treat the subject from the point of 

 view of a great source of energy which is essential 

 to many natural processes. Each science as such 

 takes its facts out of their natural surroundings and 



