TEANSACTIOiVS OF SECTION B. 683 



955 boys, or 24 percent., did practical work, consisting of a certain amount of 

 preparation of gases, together with qualitative analysis ; but of these latter 74o, 

 or 77 per cent., had not reached the study of the metals in their theoretical work, 

 so that their testing work can have been of little educational Talue. It was also 

 found that in the case of 655, or G8 per cent, of the total number of boys taking 

 practical work, the lirst introduction to practical chemistry was through quali- 

 tative analysi:?. 



But some years before this Report was issued a movement had begun which 

 was destined to have a far-reaching efltect. A Report ' on the best means for pro- 

 moting Scientific Education in Schools' having been presented to the Dundee 

 Meeting of this Association in 1867, and published in 1868, a Committee of the 

 British Association was appointed in 1887 ' for the purpose of inquiring and 

 reporting upon the present methods of teaching chemistry.' The well-known 

 Report which this Committee presented to the Newcastle Meeting in 1889 insisted 

 that it was worth while to teach chemistry in schools, not so much for the useful- 

 ness of the information imparted as for the special mental discipline it afforded if 

 the scientific method of investigating nature were employed. It was argued that 

 ' learners should be put in the attitude of discoverers, and led to make observations, 

 experiments, and inferences for themselves.' And since there can be little progress 

 without measurement, it was pointed out that the experimental work would 

 necessarily be largely of a quantitative character. 



Professor H. E. Armstrong, in a paper read at a conference at the Health 

 Exhibition five years before this, had foreshadowed much that was in this Report. 

 He also drew up a detailed scheme for 'a course of elementary instruction in 

 physical science,' which was included in the Report of the Committee, and it 

 cannot be doubted that this scheme and the labours of the Committee have had 

 a very marked influence on the development of the teaching of practical chemistry 

 in schools. That this influence has been great will be admitted when it is under- 

 stood that schemes based on the recommendation of the Committee are now 

 included in the codes for both Elementary Day Schools and Evening Continuation 

 Schools. The recent syllabuses for elementary and advanced courses issued by the 

 Incorporated Association of Headmasters and by the Oxford and Cambridge local 

 boards and others are evidently directly inspired by the ideas set forth by the 

 Committee. 



The Department of Science and Art lias also adopted some of the sugges- 

 tions of the Committee, and a revised syllabus was Lssued by the Department in 

 1895, in which qualitative analysis is replaced by quantitative experiments of a 

 simple form, and by other exercises so framed ' as to prevent answers being given 

 by students who have obtained their information from books or oral instruction.' 

 This was a very considerable advance, but it must be admitted that there is 

 nothing in the syllabus which encourages, or even suggests, placing the learners in 

 the attitude of discoverers, and this, in the opinion of the Committee of this 

 Association, is vital if the teaching is to have educational value. 



Many criticisms have been passed upon the 1889 Report. It has been said 

 that life is much too short to allow of each individual advancing from the known 

 to the unknown, according to scientific methods, and that even were this not so 

 too severe a tax is made upon the powers of boys and girls. In answer to the 

 second point it will be conceded that while it is doubtless futile to try to teach 

 chemistry to young children, on the other hand experience has abundantlj^ shown 

 that the average schoolboy of fourteen or fifteen can, with much success, investigate 

 such problems as were studied in the researches of Black and Scheele, of Priestley 

 and Cavendish and Lavoisier, and it is quite remarkable with what interest such 

 young students carry out this class of work. 



It may be well to quote the words which Sir Michael Foster used in this 

 connection in his admirable Presidential Address to this Association in 1899. He 

 said : ' The learner may be led to old truths, even the oldest, in more ways than 

 one. He may be brought abruptly to a truth in its finished form, coming straight 

 to it like a thief climbing over a wall ; and the hurry and press of modern life 

 tempt many to adopt this quicker way. Or he may be more slowly guided along 



