452, TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 
popular writers and the days of ‘popular lectures are past. Practically 
nothing is done to train the public mind and school science is in no way 
effective. 
To speak particularly of my own subject, it is impossible to rate 
chemistry at too high a value in Canada. The maintenance of the fertility 
of your fields, the proper utilisation of your vast mineral wealth, the purity 
of your food supplies * will depend mainly on the watchful care and skill 
of chemists; but the educational value of the subject may also be set very 
high. If properly taught in your schools, it will afford a means superior 
to all others, I believe, of training faculties which in these days should be 
developed in every responsible citizen. No other subject lends itself so 
effectively as a means of developing the experimental attitude of mind—the 
attitude of working with a clearly conceived purpose to a desired end, 
which is so necessary to success in these days; and if care be taken to 
inculcate habits of neatness and precision and of absolute truthfulness, 
if care be taken to teach what constitutes evidence, the moral value of such 
work is incalculable. But to be effective it must be done under proper 
conditions, systematically ; the time devoted to the work must be adequate ; 
I would even advocate that the subject be allowed to come before conven- 
tional geography and history and other unpractical subjects, assuming that 
the training is given in a practical way and with practical objects in view, 
not in the form of mere lessons learnt by rote; if taught in the form of mere 
didactic lessons it is as worthless as any other subject as mental discipline. 
Let me add that I would confine the teaching to a narrow range of problems 
but make it very thorough with reference to these. 
Five-and-twenty years ago I made my appearance as an advocate of 
what has been dubbed the heuristic method—the method which entails 
putting the learner in the attitude of inquirer, in training the pupil to 
inquire always into the meaning of what is learnt. I believe it to be in 
principle the only true method of learning. The idea has found favour 
almost generally, but the progress made in applying it has been slight; 
and this was to be expected, as teachers were few and far between who could 
carry the method into execution ; moreover, so few teachers will allow their 
pupils to learn: they are too impatient and insist on teaching them and 
on doing the work of teacher and learner—in fact, in these days, the 
learner is a rarity: examinations have almost destroyed the breed. If 
here you desire that your children shall grow up virile men and women 
with some honesty of purpose left in them, you will end and not mend a 
system which is sucking the very life-blood out of the youth in the Mother 
Country—you will insist that your children shall be taught little but learn 
much; that they do not go out into the world mere parrots. 
When studied as a special subject, chemistry, in particular, is one of 
the studies which must be worked at long and persistently—mere technical 
skill counts for so much and so few seem to possess the ability to become 
skilful chemists ; in no other science does the element of understanding and 
an indefinable power of appreciating the character of changes as they occur 
play so conspicuous a part—in no other-science is the faculty of judgment 
more necessary. In practice, the chemist in works is constantly called upon 
to exercise his judgment—he is only too often called upon to judge from 
appearances of conditions which are deep-seated ; he is everywhere the works 
physician, in fact. It is therefore necessary that he should be highly trained 
* T should like to take this opportunity of saying that it is impossible to over- 
rate the public value of the great work which Dr. Wiley has undertaken in the 
United States in endeavouring to secure the supply of food free from deleterious 
ingredients. At home we certainly need someone to preach a similar crusade and 
to free us from doctored infants’ foods and the innumerable host of medicines by 
which even our fair fields are disfigured, : 
