1 REPORT — 1867. 



APPENDIX B. 

 On the NATUEAL-ScrENCE Teaching at Etigbt. 



Before the summer of ?1864 a boy on entering Eugby might signify 

 his -sdsh to learn either modern languages or natural science ; the lessons 

 were given at the same time, and therefore excluded one another. If he 

 chose natural science he paid an entrance fee of £1 Is., Tvhich went to 

 an apparatus fund, and £o 5s. annually to the lecturer. Out of the whole 

 school, numbering from 450 to 500, about one-tenth generally were in the 

 natural science classes. 



The changes proposed by the Commissioners were as foUows : — That 

 natural science should no longer be an alternative -vv-ith modern languages, 

 but that all boys should learn some branch of it. That there should be two 

 principal branches, — one consisting of chemistry and physics, the other of 

 physiology and natural histoiy, animal and vegetable ; and that the classes 

 in natural science should be entirely independent of the general divisions of 

 the school, so that boj-s might be arranged for this study exclusively accord- 

 ing to their proficiency in it. 



Since, owing to circumstances which it would be tedious to detail, it was 

 impossible to adopt literally the proposals of the Commissioners, a system 

 was devised, which must be considered as the system of the Commissioners 

 in spirit, adapted to meet the exigencies of the case. 



The general arrangement is this, — that new boys shall learn botany their 

 first year, mechanics their second, geology their third, and chemistry their 

 fourth. 



In carrying out this general plan certain difficulties occui", which are met 

 by special arrangements depending on the peculiarities of the school system. 

 We need not here enter upon these details, because it would be impossible 

 to explain them simjily, and because any complications which occur in one 

 school would differ widely from those which are likely to arise in another. 



Next, as to the nature of the teaching. 



In botanj- the instruction is given partly by" lectures and 'partly from 

 Oliver's Botany. Flowers are dissected and examined by every boy, and 

 their parts recognized and compared in different plants, and then named. 

 No technical teiTas are given till a familiarity with the organ to be named 

 or described has given rise to their want. The terms which express the 

 cohesion and adhesion of the parts are gradually acquired vnitil the floral 

 schedule, so highly recommended by Henslow and Oliver, can be readily 

 worked. Fruit, seed, inflorescence, the forms of leaf, stem, root are then 

 treated, the principal facts of vegetable physiology illustrated, and the prin- 

 ciple of classification into natural orders explained, for the arrangement of 

 which Bentham's 'Handbook of the British Flora' is used. Contraiy to all 

 previous expectation, when this subject was first introduced it became at 

 once both popiUar and effective among the boys. 



The lectures are Ulustrated by Hcnslow's nine diagrams, and by a largo 

 and excellent collection of paintings and diagrams made by the lecturers and 

 their friends, and by botanical collections made for use in lectures. Wlion 

 the year's course is over, such boys as show a special taste are invited to 

 take botanical waUcs with the piincipal lecturer, to refer to the School Hcr- 

 bariimi, and are stimulated by prizes for advanced knowledge and for dried 

 collections, both local and general. 



In mechanics the lecturer is the senior Natiiral Science Master. The 

 lectures include experimental investigations into the mechanical powers, with 



