84 KEPOKT— 1888. 



and know, therefore, what to expect of boys, rather than in those of men 

 fresh from the " schools," and with only the experience of university 

 teaching. I should also like to see the range limited and the examination 

 papers graded. The extent of the ground covered by the Local Examina- 

 tion papers of the universities is too great for such schools as this, though 

 Oxford has recently much curtailed them. 



' I am led to hope that your Committee may see its way to step in and 

 produce something like uniformity and system. Would it not be possible 

 to draw out a scheme of teaching divided into " gi'ades," and suited to a 

 progressive course, as also to issue yearly sets of examination papers 

 adapted to these different grades ? I sincerely trust that this may be 

 one of the results of your inquiry, for I feel sure that examination by so 

 high an authority will have a most beneficial effect on science teaching, 

 and have a value in the hands of examiners impossible under any of the 

 present systems.' 



LX. ' It is, in my opinion, no use crying out against the system 

 of examinations in this country. For years to come the nation will go 

 on demanding results and getting them. Can those results be made more 

 worth having ? I believe they can. It lies entirely within the power of 

 the eminent and working chemists of the country to effect great and 

 useful reforms almost at once. It should be acknowledged that the 

 present requirements are obsolete. Looking at the enormous and ever- 

 increasing number of important and interesting facts, has not the time 

 come when chemistry should be taught to beginners as biology is taught ? 

 Instead of reading about hundi-eds of plants and animals, a student 

 becomes practically acquainted with about a dozen of each at first hand. 

 Why should not a similar plan be followed in chemistry ? Why should 

 not a thorough study of chlorine include all that an elementary pupil 

 needs to know about the halogens ? The principal member of each group 

 of the non-metallic elements might be selected for special study. As to 

 the metals, half-a-dozen, which might be varied from year to year, if really 

 mastered, would be much better than the knowledge which is required of 

 them under the present system. Room would thus be found for a few 

 oi'ganic compounds. It is pure pedantry to maintain any longer the 

 arbitrary distinction of inorganic and organic chemistry in a first and 

 general course. As to analysis, I think the present comparatively com- 

 plete course should give place to a sound knowledge of the separation of 

 some half-dozen substances, and the time thus saved could be devoted to 

 easy exercises in quantitative analysis. There can be no doubt that quan- 

 titative analysis is within the reach of any student who can perform a 

 good qualitative analysis. What I have proposed amounts to rewriting 

 a syllabus for a first or general course of chemistry, on the basis of 

 selecting a few typical substances and making a more or less complete - 

 study of them, and, with regard to analysis, to restrict the substances to 

 be studied, but to require the elements of gravimetric and volumetric 

 determinations . ' 



LXI. ' To render the teaching of chemistry of educational value it must 

 be made inductive, and not chiefly and largely deductive. The guiding 

 motto should be, " Prove all things." Experiments should be made with 

 as simple apparatus as will secure the desired result. In the earlier 

 lessons avoid all definitions, all hypotheses of atoms and molecules, of 

 atomic weight and of " bonds," but early establish the constancy of com- 

 position of compounds and the equivalent weights of certain elements in ;• 



I 



