TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 813 



weeks' duration, has been held in August at the Municipal Schools, Scarborough, 

 under the auspices of the Educational Handwork Association, and any teacher 

 in Great Britain now has the opportunity of becoming a skilled manipulator of 

 apparatus and of material. It is encouraging to be able to report an annually 

 increasing number of students in this subject. 



A teacher who has been through such a course as this is no longer restricted in 

 his apparatus. He is able to design or devise a new method of showing old facts : 

 he is able to make a piece of apparatus simply and easily for the demonstration of 

 any point requiring special attention, and he is able to overcome many of the 

 greatest difficulties that beset a teacher of science — tho^e of replacing small por- 

 tions of broken apparatus, of readjusting faulty instruments, and of increasing 

 the general efficiency and reliability of the apparatus under his care. 



In these circumstances the work of such a teacher becomes a more personal 

 exposition than could otherwise be the case. The very kind of experiments per- 

 formed and the type of apparatus chosen and used become an indication of the 

 line of the teacher's thought. Each school laboratory will gradually acquire a 

 tone from the influence of the man in charge, and so to some extent reproduce the 

 results of the old days, when our great teachers — Black, Cavendish, Bunsen, and 

 others — taught with home-made apparatus, much of which certainly indicated 

 the personality of the maker. It was suggested that such a state of things is 

 much more desirable than the present one of hundreds of laboratories containing 

 the same units of apparatus, all used in the same way, with almost the same 

 words in the explanations given. 



Furthermore, the capability of making small apparatus and appliances en- 

 courages a teacher in the use of the projecting-lantern for delicate experiments — 

 an immense educational advantage — and keeps him constantly on the look-out for 

 new and pretty (therefore attractive and easily remembered) ways of performing 

 his demonstrations. 



Specimens of students' work, illustrating the course followed in these training 

 classes, were exhibited. The specimens were all made by students in the Labora- 

 tory Arts Course, August 1910, Scarborough Summer School Educational Hand- 

 work Association. 



Joint Discussion with Section B on the Neglect of Science by Industry 

 and Commerce. 1 Opened by R. Blair, M.A. 



TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. 

 The following Papers were read : — 

 1. Outdoor Work for Schools of Normal Type. By J. Eaton Feasey. 



Anxiety with respect to the physique of school children has led to the multipli- 

 cation of open-air recovery schools. The value of these schools from the hygienic 

 standpoint is beyond question, and their work on the educational side is not 

 unsatisfactory. A danger arises, however, of outdoor educational work being 

 mentally associated with, and practically restricted to, the physically defective. 

 Against this it is urged that an immediate and large increase in the amount of 

 school-work in the open air would not only benefit children and teachers physically, 

 but is on educational grounds very desirable for all classes in schools of every type. 



At present teachers are largely slaves of the schoolroom and the desk. Outdoor 

 work is restricted to drill and gardening, with, in some few schools, an occasional 

 walk or excursion. Things which cannot be done at a desk in a room are looked 

 upon with suspicion as not being the real work of a school. Yet all are aware 

 of the serious harm done to growing children by desks necessarily unsuitable, 

 and of the impossibility of providing well-ventilated rooms and sufficient floor- 

 space. In many districts school accommodation is deficient in nearly all hygienic 



1 See The School World, October 1910. 



1910. 3 g 



