ON THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 491 
‘in order to adapt it to small schools in which the average attendance 
does not exceed sixty. 
In the Revised Instructions to her Majesty’s Inspectors it is stated 
that ‘in sanctioning any modification of the printed schemes it will be 
necessary to have regard to the experience and qualifications of the 
teacher, and to any special opportunities afforded in the town or district 
for instruction by a skilled demonstrator, who visits several schools in 
succession, or who gives collective lessons at suitable centres.’ 
The general scheme of these schedules will greatly encourage and 
facilitate the taking up of these subjects, but the members of your Com- 
mittee who are practical teachers of science are not satisfied with the final 
form in which they appear. They disapprove of the way in which object 
lessons in Standards I. and II. are treated, and especially that in the 
alternate courses they are made so closely connected with the special 
science which is to occupy the learners’ attention in the later standards. 
They also disapprove of many details of arrangement in the respective 
standards; and of the minute subdivision in the schedule of sciences 
which are closely related to one another. The National Association for 
the Promotion of Technical Education endeavoured to get some modifica- 
tions of these schedules, and drew up an alternative scheme of three 
courses in which the specialisation began at the Fourth Standard. None 
of these suggested improvements, however, appears in the ‘ Minute of the 
Committee of Council on Education modifying certain provisions of the 
new Code (1890),’ which was passed on July 11. This minute, however, 
contains two clauses which will have an important bearing on the teach- 
ing of science. The first allows scholars who have passed the Seventh 
Standard, but are under fourteen years of age, to be retained on the 
school rolls and to count in the average attendance. The second rescinds 
the prohibition against presenting scholars in specific subjects in any 
school which in the preceding year failed to obtain the principal grant of 
14s., unless such failure was due to other causes than that of the scholars 
not having been satisfactorily taught recitation. 
In the specific subjects contained in Schedule IV. the principal altera- 
tions are the dropping of the alternative course in Mechanics, which was 
mainly theoretical and was rarely taken, and theseparation of Mensuration 
from Euclid. 
The alterations in the Code with regard to evening schools are 
important, and, as far as they go, are in accordance with the proposals of 
the Council of the British Association in 1881. These are, the rescinding 
of the requirement that scholars in the evening schools must be presented 
for examination in Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, so far as those that 
have passed the Fifth Standard are concerned ; and of the requirement that 
if special subjects are taught English must be one. Those scholars who 
have already passed Standard V. in the day school may be presented for 
examination in not less than two and not more than four of the special 
subjects. The omission of the elementary subjects has necessitated the 
passing of a small Bill through Parliament to legalise the making of grants 
to schools where elementary instruction was not the principal part of the 
instruction given. This Bill of Sir William Hart Dyke, which passed 
without opposition, opens the way for a considerable extension of natural 
science teaching. 
There is still, however, one serious omission in the Code—the want of 
any stipulation that pupil teachers shall receive instruction in some branch 
of Natural Science. It still remains the case, as has already been pointed 
