TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 57 



a permanent ConsnltatiA'e Council^ to advise tlie various departments tlirougli 

 the Minister. His purpose was not to endeavour to uproot the existing 

 system, hut to graft upon it additions demanded by experience and the progress of 

 knowledge. Assuming that the INIinister would he appointed for his station, 

 parliamentary ability, and political iniluence, he would need advisers, who should 

 be a permanent, well-paid, and therefore a responsible Council of Science, repre- 

 senting all the main branches of science, the different arms of the military and 

 naval services, commerce, agriculture, and the engineering profession. The Council 

 should be quite independent of political influences. The author described the 

 mode of election to the Council which he proposed, and in which he would give a 

 certain voice to the Scientific Societies. The duties of the Council would be — 

 first, to advise the Government on all questions arising in the ordinary routine of 

 administration submitted to it by the various departments ; second, to advise the 

 GoA'ernment on special questions, such as the founding of new scientific institu- 

 tions and the modification or abolition of old ones, the sanctioning of scientific 

 expeditions and applications for grants for scientific purposes ; third, to consider 

 and decide upon inventions tendered to Government for the use of the State; and, 

 fourth, to conduct or superintend the experiments necessary to enable it to perform 

 these duties. This would not entirel}' relieve the Government of all respousibility 

 in scientific matters. The advantages to the nation accruing from a sound and 

 comprehensive administration of science were incalculable. 



The author referred, for fuller particulars regarding the subject, to his pjiper 

 " On the Necessity for a Permanent Commission on State Scientific Questions," 

 read before the Iloj'al United Service Institution on the 15th of May last, and 

 published in No. G4 of the Journal of the Institution. 



Obstacles to Science- TeacJiing in ScTiooh. Bjj the Key. W. Tuckwell. 



After describing the slow progress made in scientific teaching since the Report 

 of the Public Schools' Commission in 1864, and declaring that the first-class 

 English schools teaching science systematically at the present momentcan b e 

 counted on the fingers of one hand, the author proceeded to show that the head 

 masters were not altogether to be blamed for this state of things. 



They have inherited an order of tuition some hundred years old, fortified with 

 minute, unbroken venerable traditions, looked upon for ages past as the supreme 

 instrument and test of intellectual power, whole and complete in itself, supported 

 by immense experience, worked by tried machinery. Into the midst of this well- 

 mapped, well-proved system is thrust a strange and foreign subject, comprising 

 many branches, and demanding multifold appliances, whose value as a mental 

 weapon they have had no means of testing ; they are called upon to surrender to 

 this a portion of the time which alreadj' seems too short for other work, and to in- 

 augurate a department of school labour over which they can exercise no sort of 

 supervision or control. They ask for guidance in the new arrangements which 

 they are called upon to form ; whether anj^ one department is educationally funda- 

 mental to the rest ; whether sciences of experiment should precede or follow those 

 of observation ; what portions of the old course are to be abandoned; how far the 

 Universities, which in many cases stamp the practical value of their work, will 

 recognize such abandonment. They look round for accredited teachers and ap- 

 proved text-books, for enlightenment as to the amount of apparatus and its cost, 

 for details of teaching and of testing, and they look in vain. The}^ must fall back 

 upon their ov^ti moral consciousness, for no help is tendered to them from without. I 

 place this helplessness of head masters first on the list of obstacles which we 

 have to chronicle ; and I plead, for the moment, in their behalf, almost more 

 than in behalf of science. For their attitude is frauk and cordial; they are prepared 

 as a body to meet the demands of the scientific public loyally and with all their 

 might. If those who are pressing modern subjects on them will entertain their 

 just appeal and tryto understand their difficulties, they will prove the best auxiliaries 

 science can hope to gain ; for they will bring to this new department of their work 

 the same energy and wisdom, the same self-sacrificing impartial zeal, which have 



