TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



475 



a larger staff of teachers than the other system ? The best French teachers will 

 not tell you so. Probably under any system eleven pupils are as many as any one 

 teacher should be expected to attend to. But even if the better system is somewhat 

 more expensive to work, surely, even in a commercial sense, it is worth the money. 



SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 1879. 

 This Section did not meet. 



MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 1879. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. Elementary Natural Science in the Board Schools of London. 

 By Dr. J. H. Gladstone, F.B.S., Member of the London School Board. 



In elementary schools a knowledge of the facts of nature is generally given in 

 two very different ways. In the Infant department there usually linger some 

 remnants of that instruction by object lessons which was considered a valuable 

 part of education before the Revised Code of 1861. In the higher standards of the 

 Boys' and Girls' departments certain sciences may he taught as ' specific subjects,' 

 and receive encouragement by a Government grant. 



The London School Board has all along desired that this knowledge of nature 

 should not be confined to the least and the moat advanced scholars, but should be ex- 

 tended throughout the whole course of a child's school life. It covers the walls of 

 its schools with natural history pictures, and other diagrams, it gives a preference 

 to teachers holding science certificates, it publishes fidl instructions to the teachers in 

 regard to object lessons, and it provides a box of simple apparatus, and loan collec- 

 tions illustrative of various manufactures, animal physiology, and mechanics. On 

 May 7 it unanimously passed a resolution that, ' In the opinion of this Board it 

 would be expedient to include the elements of natural science amongst the recog- 

 nised subjects of class examination, under Article 19, c. 1, of the Education Code,' 

 and on June 27 a deputation of the Board presented a memorial to that effect to 

 the Lord President of the Council. 



At the present time, out of 1074 male and 1790 female teachers, 888 males and 

 442 females hold advanced science certificates, varying in number from 1 to 2-3, as 

 will be seen in the following table : — 



Object lessons may be assumed to be given in all the Infant departments, and 

 are regularly reported on by the Inspectors of the Board. Advanced object 

 lessons, generally on natural history, are taught in many of the Boys' and Girls' de- 

 partments, and there is little doubt that they will soon become much more general 

 and systematic. 



