ON THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 191 



scientific and technical — Higher Grade (Science) Schools — or predominantly 

 commercial — Higher Grade (Commercial) Schools, or they may give a course 

 which is recognised by the Department as specially suited to girls or to 

 special classes of pupils. In all cases the Department must be satisfied 

 that the school possesses the proper provision of class rooms, laboratories, 

 and workshops necessary for the pai'ticular type of education to be given 

 therein. . . . Pupils following the Higher Grade Science course must 

 take in addition the following subjects : Mathematics, Experimental 

 Science, and as a rule some form of Manual Work. . . . In the second year 

 of the Higher Grade Science course not less than eight, and in the third 

 year not less than ten, hours a week must, as a rule, be allotted to Science, 

 and at least half of this time must be spent by the pupils in individual 

 experimental work. For the purjDose of this article three hours of 

 Drawing or of Manual Instruction, or of both conjointly, will be reckoned 

 as equivalent to two hours of Science. In the third and following years 

 Manual Instruction may be dropped, and the pupil should devote himself 

 to the study of some special branch of Science.' In Appendix V. it is 

 further stated : ' The course in Science should proceed from elementary 

 exercises in measuring and weighing, and calculations based thereon, to 

 the experimental investigation of elementary notions of Physics and 

 Chemistry. In rural schools, and in summer, some investigation of plant 

 life and of the elements of Botany should be added. At least half the 

 time devoted to this subject should be spent by each pupil in practical 

 work. . . . The Department must be satisfied that the teachers have a 

 competent knowledge of the subjects which they are to teach in each 

 subject individually, and in the case of Science that they have had 

 experience in treating the subject experimentally.' 



In the Reports for 1897 and 1898 your Committee referred to the 

 improvements which were being effected in the teaching of Science in the 

 London Board Schools, and to Professor Fitzgerald's advocacy of the 

 extension of the same system to Ireland. The Commission on Practical 

 and Manual Instruction, of which he was a membei', reported strongly in 

 favour of such work, and decided that similar instruction should be given 

 in schools under the National Board of Education. To this end Mr. Heller 

 (whose transference from London to Birmingham has been already noted) 

 has been appointed Organiser of Science Instruction in Irish Schools, and 

 will take up his new duties as soon as he can be released from the Head- 

 mastership of the Municipal Technical School of Birmingham. The 

 syllabuses of specific subjects in the Irish Code are similar to those in the 

 English Code of regulations. For the present a scheme corresponding to 

 Course H of the English Code has been introduced in a slightly modified 

 form, and notes have been added indicating the spirit in which the 

 instruction should be given. A training laboratory is being equipped in 

 Dublin at which selected teachers will be taken through a course of 

 instruction in heuristic methods, and where they will receive the benefit 

 of the experience gained in the London schools. The training colleges 

 not under the control of the National Board are also understood to be 

 sympathetic, so that there is very good prospect that the Science teaching 

 in National Schools in Ireland will be energetically developed. 



The advance which was noted last year in the work of the Evening 

 Continuation Schools does not seem to have been maintained, as will be 

 evident from the following table. Nearly all the subjects show a falling 

 off", except Elementary Physics and Chemistry, Domestic Science and 



