Sept. 10, 1885] 
NA TORE 
451 
developed by the study of experimental science: this faculty, which 
is of such enormous practical value throughout life, being, I 
believe—as I have said elsewhere—left uncultivated after the 
most careful mathematical ard literary training. No one has 
stated this more clearly than Charles Kingsley. We are told 
that, speaking to the boys at Wellington College, he said : ‘* The 
first thing for a boy to learn, after obedience and morality, is a 
habit of observation—a habit of using his eyes. It matters little 
what you use them on, provided you do use them. They say 
knowledge is power, and so it is—but only the knowledge which 
you get by observation. Many aman is very learned in books, 
and has read for years and years, and yet he is useless. He knows 
about allsorts of things, but he can’t do them.” This is precisely 
our complaint—the average schoolboy may know a gocd deal 
about things, but he can’t do them. The ordinary school 
system of training does not, in fact, develop the ‘‘ wits,” 
to use a popular and expressive term for the observing 
and reasoning faculties; but it is certain that the 
wits require training. It is because the teaching of experi- 
mental science tends to develop the wits that those among us 
who know its power are so anxious for its introduction. This 
cannot be too clearly stated, the popular view—to judge from 
newspaper discussions—being apparently that science is to be 
classed with ‘‘ extras”: that it is good for those who can afford 
it, but can be dispensed with by those who cannot. This un- 
doubtedly is true of the ‘‘ science ” which is taught the specialist, 
and I fear even of much of the ‘‘science’’ which is at present 
taught in schools: let us hope that ere long other views will 
prevail when the object which it is sought to gain by teaching 
science is made clear. 
While blaming the schoolmaster for his neglect, it must not 
be forgotten that the teaching of sciences in schools meets with 
comparatively little encouragement at the hands of our examin- 
ing bodies and the universities. Again, examinations are too 
often entrusted to those who have no educational experience, 
and with most unfortunate results : in no case, probably, is in- 
experience so inexcusable as in an examiner. Too often, also, 
the exaininations are in the hands of pure specialists, who take 
too formal a view of their duty, and expect from boys and girls 
at school as much as from their own students, who are older and 
devote more time to the work. Such examiners are prone to 
discourage science by marking too severely ; and as their ques- 
tions govern the teaching, instruction is given in schools without 
due reference to educational requirements, and in a purely 
technical style: this, I fear, is the effect of some of the 
universities’ local examinations. 
I have it on good authority, that the recent changes in the 
scheme of the examinations for admission at Sandhurst have 
forced one large school, well known for the attention paid in it 
to the teaching of science, to cease to give instruction in science 
to those of its pupils who propose to compete at these examina- 
tions, at once on their deciding to do so. Then, not only are 
the science scholarships at the universities few in proportion, 
but the great majority of students pass through their university 
career without being called upon to gain the slightest knowledge of 
physical science : yet, more often than not, the teachers are chosen 
from these. A large proportion become clergymen, and consider- 
ing the demands upon them and the unbounded opportunities 
which they have of imparting useful information, there cannot be 
a doubt that to no other class of the community is a knowledge of 
natural science likely to be of more value. Let us hope that 
the time is near when our universities will no longer be open to 
this reproach.? Whatever steps they may elect to take, it is 
before all:things important that-it be not forgotten that their 
main purpose must be to influence the schools, so that experi- 
mental science may be used as an educational weapon at the 
most appropriate time, and not when the faculties to be fashioned 
_* “T sometimes dream,” said Kingsley, ‘of a day when it will be con- 
sidered necessary that every candidate for ordination should be required to 
have passed creditably in at least one branch of physical science, if it be only 
to teach him the method of sound scientific thought.” 
'? J learnt with the most lively satisfaction, but a few days ago, that Dr. 
Percival, the late head-master of Clifton College, speaking at a meeting of 
Convocation at Oxford last term, said: “If twenty years ago this university 
had said : from this time forward the elements of natural science shall take 
their piace in responsions side by side with the elements of mathematics, and 
shall be equally obligatory, you would long ago have effected a revolution in 
school education.” ‘This remark elicited some warm expressions of approval. 
Dr. Percival has, I am sure, the approval of all science teachers, and he 
will earn their gratitude, and deserve that of the public at large, if he can 
succeed in inducing his university to take action in accordance with his 
enlightened views, 
by it have become atrophied through neglect, as I fear is too 
often the case, ere the university is reached. 
We must carefully guard against being satisfied with the mere 
introduction of one or more science subjects into the school cur 
riculum : some of those who strenuously advocate the introduc- 
tion of science teaching perhaps do not sufficiently bear this in 
mind. Chemistry, physics, &c., may be—and I fear are, more 
often than not—taught in such a way that it were better had no 
attempt whatever been made to teachthem. I hold that it is of 
no use merely to set lads to prepare oxygen, &c., orto make ex- 
periments which please them in proportion as they more nearly 
resemble fireworks ; and it is not the duty of the schoolmaster 
to train his boys as though they were to become chemists, any 
more than it is his duty to fit them to enter any other particular 
profession or trade : the whole of the science teaching in a school 
should be subservient to the one object of developing certain 
faculties. Unfortunately, two great difficulties stand in the way 
at present—viz. the want of suitable books and of a rational 
system of teaching science from the point of view here ad- 
yocated ; and the requirements of the universities and other 
examining bodies. Both books and examinations are of too 
special a character: they may suit the specialist, but do not meet 
educational requirements. I have already somewhat fully ex- 
pressed my views on this subject in a paper read at the Educa- 
tional Conference in London last year. Although much more 
might be said, I will now only call attention to the important 
service which we may render in removing these difficulties. 
The reform most urgently needed, in which, as members of 
the community, not merely as chemists, we are all most in- 
terested, is the introduction of some system which will insure a 
proper training for teachers. Engineers, lawyers, medical men, 
pharmacists, have severally associated themselves to found in- 
stitutions which require those who desire to join the profession to 
obtain a certain qualification ; even chemists are seeking to do 
this through the Institute of Chemistry. But schoolmasters, 
although members of what is probably the most responsible, 
onerous, useful, and honourable of any of the professions, have 
as yet neither made, nor shown any inclination to make, a united 
effort to insure that all those who join their profession shall be 
properly qualified. Surely the time has come when the subject 
must receive full public attention; the country cannot much 
longer remain content that the education of all but those of its 
sons and daughters who come within the province of the School 
Board should be carried on without any guarantee that it is being 
properly conducted. 
Glaring as are the faults in the existing school system, and 
although it rests with the universities and other teaching and 
examining bodies—if the public do not intervene—to prescril e 
a proper course of instruction for potential schoolmasters and to 
enforce a rational system of training all the mental faculties, we 
science teachers may meanwhile do much by introducing more 
perfect methods into our own system of teaching. The students 
attending our courses belong to various classes: some will 
become chemists, and require the highest and most complete 
training ; others will be teachers in colleges or schools ; many 
will occupy themselves as consulting chemists or analysts ; many 
others will have to take charge of manufacturing operations in 
which a knowledge of chemistry is of more or less direct im- 
portance and value ; not a few will become medical men; and 
a large proportion, let us hope, will be those who have no direct 
use for chemistry, although the knowledge will be of great ser- 
vice to them in many ways : among such we may include archi- 
tects and builders, engineers, farmers, and even country gentle- 
men. Have we sufficiently considered the several requirements 
of all these various classes? I submit, with all due deference, 
that we have not! Our attention has been too exclusively 
directed to the training up of the future analyst ; the instruction 
has been of too technical a character. 
I know it is rank heresy to say so, but I maintain that in 
future far less time must be devoted to the teaching of ordinary 
qualitative and quantitative analysis, and that technical instruc- 
tion as now given in these subjects must find its place later in the 
course. Our main object in the first instance must be to fully 
develop the intellectual faculties of our students ; to encourage 
their aspirations by inculcating broad and liberal views of our 
science, not an infinite number of petty details. We must not 
merely teach them the principles and main facts of our science, 
but we must show them how the knowledge of those facts and 
principles has been gained ; and they must be so drilled as to 
have complete command of theis knowledge. The great 
