256 



REPORT — 1889. 



and the number of such who are also studjiug the subject in public 

 elementary schools.^ 



Taking the above figures, in conjunction with those given on p. 254, 

 for the teaching of chemistry as a specific subject, we may say that in 

 the public elementary schools of England and Wales there were during 

 the last school year about 10,000 scholars receiving instruction in chemis- 

 try, or about 1 in 364 in average attendance, or 1 in 450 on the total 

 number of children on the register. 



In the Appendix more detailed information is given as to the teaching 

 of chemistry in one or two large towns. 



Diffictdlies in the ivay of Chemical Teaching in JPuhlic Elementary 

 Schools. — Although a satisfactory course of instruction in chemistry 

 might be based on the Code, it is seldom done. Children on leaving the 

 infant schools pass into the standards where elementary science is only 

 an optional subject. The first optional subject must be English, and if 

 a second is taken it is usually geography, and in most schools — as, for 

 example, in those of the Leeds district— -there is practically no ' elemen- 

 tary science ' taught in the first four standards. 



When children arrive at Standard V. they may take chemistry as a 

 * specific ' subject, but several difficulties are met with, of which the 

 following are the chief : — 



1. Between the infant school and the Fifth Standard there is 



generally a gap of four years, during which the faculties of' 

 observation have received no training, and the good beginning 

 made in the infant school has not been followed up. 



2. The expense and trouble of preparing experiments. This may, 



for example, lead to the teaching of physiology (by diagrams 

 only) instead. 



3. The smallness of the grant obtainable (4s. for a pass). 



The third difficulty is partly overcome by school authorities making 

 tlie teaching of chemistry as a specific subject preliminary to the classes 

 held under South Kensington, the pupils of which obtain substantial 

 •grants ; but a difficulty is experienced in co-ordinating the Code Schedule 

 with the South Kensington syllabus, so that pupils on reaching Standard 

 VI. may be only just ready for the South Kensington examinations in the 

 following May. If a pupil is taught chemistry as a ' specific ' subject 



' From a return kindly furnished by Major-General Donnelly, Secretary of the 

 Science and Art Department. 



