OCTOBLR 8, I908J 



NA TURE 



589 



occupations as mere idleness. I-ong rambles, such as were 

 the delight of my boyhood, when we used to go miles in 

 search of a wasp's nest, are in certain modern schools 

 abolished by compulsory games. Some day or other (the 

 reform will not come in my time) we shall recognise that 

 the chief occupation of the young child should be spon- 

 taneous natural play. 



That interesting book called " Public Education," now 

 nearly a hundred years old, in which we find a description 

 of the methods practised by Rowland Hill and his brothers 

 at Hazelwood and Bruce Castle, is inspired by the desire 

 to make education natural and not merely artificial ; so 

 is that older and still better book, " Edgeworth on Prac- 

 tical Education." There are modern English schools which 

 give fair opportunity for natural education. I pass over 

 some, perhaps many, out of mere ignorance ; but I will 

 name two which I happen to know — Bedalcs School and 

 the Friends' School at Bootham, York, both of which have 

 discovered how to combine natural education with 

 efficiency. 



Heuristic Methods. 



Dr. .Armstrong's heuristic method is well known in this 

 section. H# tells us that neither the name nor the thing 

 is altogether new, and the same may be said of nearly 

 every educational expedient. Promising schemes are pro- 

 posed, tried perhaps on a small scale, and dropped, often 

 for lack of enterprise on the part of the teachers, and 

 years after someone discovers them again. Dr. Armstrong 

 tells us ' where he got the name, and quotes a passage 

 from Edmund Burke, which clearly describes the method. 

 It is now a good many years since I saw Mr. Heller give 

 several lessons on this plan in elementary schools in 

 London, and was then permanently convinced of the real 

 value of the heuristic method. I only wish that we had 

 a score of such, each worked out as carefully as Dr. 

 Armstrong's model. 



The method need not be confined to experimental science, 

 nor to science at all. I have attempted something of the 

 same kind in elementary biology. Why should not teachers 

 of history carry out a little historical research with the 

 help of an upper form ? Suppose that the subject chosen 

 was English town and country life in the sixteenth century. 

 Harrison's Description of England, Shakespeare's plays, 

 Walton's Lives, some of the modern books which collect 

 the testimony of foreign visitors during the reigns of 

 Elizabeth and James L, Spenser's View of the State of 

 Ireland, and Hume Brown's Scotland before 1700 are, let 

 us suppose, accessible to the class. L'seful materials from 

 these and any other sources might be arranged in a card- 

 index. Cooperation is eminently desirable, and a little 

 club of pupils might well make their index in common. 

 Then the materials should be treated in literary form, 

 every detail of literary workmanship receiving attention. 

 I fully expect to be told that this plan has actually been 

 trii'd in some school or other. The historical researches 

 of the school may give opportunity for the use of foreign 

 languages, for map-drawing, or for the handling of 

 statistical information. 



Mr. Greening Lamborn's " School History of Berk- 

 shire " " is interesting as an investigation carried out bv 

 and for the boys of an Oxford school. It will be read in 

 a very different spirit from that with which the condensed 

 school-history of England is received, and will no doubt 

 suggest more work of the same kind. The share of the 

 boys may well grow larger and larger. 



The advocates of learning by inquiry and learning by 

 doing will descend even into the nursery. What an oppor- 

 tunity is afforded by toys ! — an opportunity that those who 

 purchase all their children's tovs throw awav. Surelv 

 every little girl ought to be encouraged to make plausible 

 dolls out of the rag-bag. e\"erv little bov to make his ou'n 

 menagerie, his own boats and whistles and sledges. Even 

 the bought toy gives opportunity for inquiry. .Ask anv 

 child if he has noticed that the animals of the Noah's .Ark 

 ^re always thicker at one end, usually the hinder end. 

 There is a reason for this, and a curious reason, which 

 the child may be helped to discover. 



1 '* The Teac'iing of Scientific Method, &c ," 1003, p. 235. 

 - CLirendon Pres^, 1:08. 



NO. 2032, VOL. 7S] 



Mastery of Something. 



Let us indulge less than we do the passion of intellectual 

 avarice, if only because avarice blinds us to the relative 

 values of things. The old French anatomist, M^ry, said 

 of himself and his colleagues that they were like the rag- 

 pickers of Paris, who knew every street and alley, but 

 had no notion of what went on in the houses. The 

 accumulation of miscellaneous knowledge of useful things, 

 copious, inexact, inapplicable, may, like rag-picking, leave 

 us ignorant of the world in which we live. Let us try to 

 reach the inner life of something, great or small. The 

 truly useful knowledge is mastery. Mastery does not come 

 by listening while somebody explains : it is the reward of 

 effort. Effort, again, is inspired by interest and sense of 

 duty. Interest alone may tire too quickly ; sense of duty 

 alone may grow formal and unintelligent. Mastery comes 

 by attending long to a particular thing — by inquiring, by 

 looking hard at things, by handling and doing, by con- 

 triving and trying, by forming good habits of work, and 

 especially the habit of distinguishing between the things 

 that signify and those that do not. 



It is too much to expect that mastery will often be 

 attained in school. School is but a preparation, not I 

 think for promiscuous learning, but for the business of 

 life. The school will have done its part if in favourable 

 cases it has set a pattern which w'ill afterwards develop 

 itself naturally and harmoniously. 



CHEMISTRY AT THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION. 



A N unusually large number of chemists attended the 

 ■^ meeting, and in consequence very many papers, some 

 of considerable importance, were read before the section. 

 Chief interest attached to the discussions, which were 

 well supported and of real value ; it is worthy of con- 

 sideration whether it be not advisable to devote the pro- 

 gramme almost entirely to these. On no other occasion 

 is it possible to have what may be termed " borderland 

 problems " discussed conjointly with representatives of 

 other sciences. 



The most novel contribution to the section was that 

 made on behalf of Dr. Mond, describing the preparation 

 and properties of cobalt carbonyl. The preparation of this 

 substance has hitherto been attempted in vain, though the 

 remarkable compounds of carbon monoxide with nickel or 

 iron have been known since 1890. It 'is now obtained by 

 acting on finely divided cobalt with carbon monoxide at 

 100 atmospheres pressure between 150° and 200°. It forms 

 large orange crystals, which decompose in the air, yield- 

 ing a deep violet substance. 



Sir William Ramsay related in popular terms the well- 

 known story of the discovery of argon, helium and other 

 gases in the atmosphere. Following him, Prof. Hartley 

 described his researches on the detection of Hthiunt in 

 radio-active minerals, which are of importance in connec- 

 tion with the assumed transmutation of copper contained 

 in solution into lithium, neon and possibly other sub- 

 stances. He adduced much experimental work to show 

 that it is impossible to corroborate Sir William Ramsay's 

 statements that potassium is a more widely distributed 

 element than lithium, or that lithium is an unlikely con- 

 stituent of dust, glass, copper, &-c. 



Prof. Rutherford described experimental work showing 

 that the amount of neon in 1/15 c.c. of air readily gives 

 the neon spectrum, and can so be detected. He attributed 

 Sir William Ramsay's assumed formation of neon by the 

 action of the emanations on water to a slight leakage of 

 air during the experiment, and claimed that when air is 

 excluded no neon is formed. Sir William Ramsay, reply- 

 ing, upheld his experiments, but agreed that the formation 

 of lithium from copper was of a less degree of certainty 

 than the other transmutations he has observed. 



Sir James Dewar communicated a paper from Dr. 

 Kamerlingh Onnes describing the apparatus used to liquefy 

 helium. From the study of the isothermals of helium the 

 critical temperature was found to lie between 5° and 6° 

 absolute, indicating that the gas must be cooled below 

 ■;o° absolute before it will cool on expansion. By boiling 



