Oct. 15, 1874] 



NATURE 



493 



introduction, availing ourselves of existing resources, with such 

 improvements as may be looked for under the stimulus of the 

 increasing interest evinced I y some of our great corporations, by 

 the parents themselves, and consequently by the Legislature. 



One important step in the right direction has lately been 

 taken : — Although the political chief is still a species of odd man 

 whose duties include the passing of Ballot Acts, the suppression 

 of foot-and-mouth disease, and the negotiation of Washington 

 Treaties, the (lovemment departments of literary instruction and 

 of Science and Art have been placed under the control of a single 

 permanent administrative head. 



I understand technical instruction to include, besides the 

 teaching of industrial manipulation, which for our present purpose 

 we may exclude, firstly, drawing, mathematics, and the physical 

 sciences, which are the bases of the industrial arts ; and secondly, 

 the application of those sciences and of the art of design to indus- 

 trial purposes. I should place in the first division such subjects 

 as : — 



Chemistry. 



Physics. 



Geology. 



Physical Geography. 

 Biology. 

 Astronomy, &c. ; 



Pure Mathematics. 



Geometry. 



Theoietical Me- 

 chanics, 

 and in the second — 



Building Construction. Machine Construction. Met allurgy. 

 Naval Architecture. Chemical] and Manufac- Agriculture.-, &c. 

 Applied Mechanics. turing Technology. 



Although this list is incomplete, it will be obvious ihat the field 

 is too wide to be covered within the school period, even when 

 the pupUs remain at school to the age of adolescence ; bearing in 

 mind always that instruction in technical subjects to the exclu- 

 sion of other branches of a liberal education would defeat its own 

 object. Much more is this the case with children leaving school 

 between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. The choice of subjects 

 must vary with the age at which school instruction is to termi- 

 nate, and with the future career of the scholar. 



A condition precedent, however, to the possibility of technical 

 instruction is a due provision of science teachers. For these 

 we must look, in the main, as to elementary schools, to our 

 training colleges, assisted by such institutions as the Science 

 School of South Kensington, and as to secondary schools, to 

 the Universities, and to institutions like King's College, Uni- 

 versity College, and Owens College. The training colleges 

 sht)uld add a third year to their curriculum ; instruction in 

 mathematics an<l in some of the other subjects which I have 

 included in the hist division should be part of the obli- 

 gatory course ; and no elementary school containing, for 

 example, loo children and upwards should, after a certain date, 

 receive the Parliamentary grant on results, unless it had a 

 teacher who had passed satisfactorily in Geometry, in Physical 

 Geography, and in Physics or in Biology. A man thus quali- 

 fied, having become familiar with the method oi science, could, 

 if he chose, afterwards acquire other theoretical subjects as well 

 as those of application, included in the second division ; for 

 instance, machine constiuction, chemical technology, or agricul- 

 ture — availing himself for that purpose, as to the first class of 

 subjects, of the annual courses for elementary teachers at South 

 Kensington, or of any other means of instruction which may be 

 within his reach. But if he stopped short at the limited but 

 exact instruction in theoretical science which I suppose him to 

 have obtained in the training college, he would be infinitely 

 better qualified as a teacher than if ouring that course he had 

 taken up a greater range of sut>jects superficially. Whether he 

 be competent to teach many subjects or not, the children of 

 the elementary schools whom he is to instruct have not time to 

 acquire more than the rudiments of one or two theoretical 

 sciences. At the same time an elementary teacher, who is 

 qualified to give instruction in the applied sciences, will find 

 employment 111 adult classes, such as those in connection with 

 the Science and Art Department. 



Assuming, then, that every elementary school for 100 pupils 

 and upwards, which would include the principal village schools, 

 had a master or assistant qualified in science, the course of such 

 a school should include, for all the children, linear drawing and 

 lessons on common objects which would be illustrated by locally 

 accessible specimens ; jthe ordinary reading-book should also 

 describe in familiar language the phenomena of nature. Those 

 who are acquainted with tlie admirable text-books on Elemen- 

 tary Science of Prof. Balfour Stewart, Ur. Koscoe, and others, 

 cannot doubt that the task of compiling such a reading-book will 

 be undertaken by competent ban. 1s, as soon as the want of it 



becomes felt. Indeed, I am not sure that it does not already 

 exist amongst the publications of the Irish National Board. The 

 older children, those between the ages of ten and thirteen, 

 should receive instruction in Physical Geography, in the elements 

 of Trigonometry, and, from the age of eleven or t\ielve, in the 

 rudiments of Biology or of Physics, perhaps, in some excep- 

 tional cases, of both. More cannot be done for them in the 

 elementary school ; a few should be drafted into the secondary 

 school ; but the greater number would at the age of thirteen 

 become full time-workers in the field, at the bench , or in the 

 factory ; possessing, however, as is now but rarely the case, the 

 elementary instruction required for taking advantage in their 

 leisure hours of the science classes which are to be found in 

 almost every district of the United Kingdom. How much may 

 be done there is evident from the success of the Andersonian 

 University in your city, with its 1,400 students, lo whose founder 

 belongs the honour of having been, more than a century ago, the 

 originator of scientific instruction to the working classes. Chil- 

 dren thus taught from the commencement by such masters, when 

 they afterwards receive instruction in science, would not be sub- 

 jected to, and would revolt against, cram like that recorded in 

 the Report of the Science and Art Department for the present 

 year, in which Prof. Ramsay, the examiner in Geology, says that 

 " candidates answer one of last year's questions in place of one 

 of this year's, as if they had been specially crammed in last 

 year's examination ; " and Prof. Carey Foster, acting with Dr. 

 Tyndall as examiner in Acoustics, Light, and Heat, states that a 

 good number of candidates in the advanced stage " suppose that 

 in order to damp the vibrations of a string it is needful to ivcl 

 the string," and "that a ship is the kind of vessel that would 

 usually be employed for containing air." 



Amongst other conspicuous examples of adult instruction in 

 science given to the class whose education has been received in 

 elementary schools I may name the lectures for working men of 

 Owens College, numbering more than 600 students, under the 

 gratuitous tuition of the professors of that institution, and those 

 of the Miners' Association of Cornwall and Devon, organised 

 some dozen years ago by Mr. Robert Hunt, F.R. S., Keeper of 

 Mining Records, whose teachers seek out the working miner in 

 his village and make him familiar with the laws of the forces 

 and the properties of the matter with which he is brought into 

 contact in his daily work. But time is wanting to allude further 

 to the subject of adult elementary instruction in science, nor 

 will I enter into the question of science teaching in our great 

 public schools, which has been inquired into by Mr. Norman 

 Lockyer, F.R.S., the secretary of the Royal Commission on 

 Scientific Instruction.'whose report will doubtless be forthcoming 

 before long. 



In secondary schools, 'assuming the existence of competent 

 teachers, and that they retain their scholars from the age of 

 eight or nine to sixteen or seventeen — I should commence, as 

 in the elementary school, with lessons in drawmg and on 

 familiar objects, and in Physical Geography ; and introduce 

 Mathematics, beginning v;ith Geometry at the age of eleven or 

 twelve, continuing it until the pupil leaves school ; systematic 

 instruction in the elements of natural science might begin at the 

 age of ten to eleven with Natural History, including Geology ; 

 and the six years until the pupil leaves at the age of sixteen or 

 seventeen could be made readily to include successively the 

 elements of that science and of Physics and Chemistry. With 

 the exception perhaps of applied mechanics, it would not in 

 my opinion be possible to include the applied sciences, but the 

 teacher would illustrate his instruction by practical applications. 

 Work in the laboratory is a necessity if a thorough appreciation 

 in kind, however limited in extent, of natural science is to be 

 acquired ; but the experience of the Rev. W. Tuckwell, of the 

 College School at Taunton, communicated to the British Asso- 

 ciation, and of others, shows that a school laboratory need not 

 cost more than 200/. to 400/. 



Only in those cases where school education is continued to the 

 age of eighteen or nineteen years would it be desirable to intro- 

 duce such subjects as building, or machine construction, or 

 chemical technology. In all other cases more real progress 

 would be made by devoting all the available time to theoretical 

 science . The scholar who enters into active life as an apprentice 

 at the age of sixteen or seventeen, would see in the workshop 

 the application of the principles which he would have learnt at 

 school, and, if diligent, he would find opportunities of further 

 study in adult classes, in factories, and in text-books on special 

 subjects. For instiuction in the entire range of theoretical and 

 applied science it would be necessary that the student sVould 



