TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 761 
the gas. It further serves to measure the percentage of carbon monoxide present 
in the air, since the height of the cap regularly increases as the amount of gas 
increases. It is applied either by carrying an ordinary miner's safety-lamp provided 
with a hydrogen flame into the atmosphere to be tested ; or, since this would 
probably be attended with danger from carbon monoxide, the atmosphere can be 
made to pass over the flame by means of a pump. This test, however, fails to 
distinguish carbonic oxide from other combustible gases, and therefore recourse 
must be had to the ordinary. process of absorption with cuprous chloride solution 
when the distinction, as well as the estimation of this gas, is necessary. The 
euprous chloride method does not readily measure less than 05 per. cent. of the 
gas in the air, and this is a seriously poisonous proportion. 
Dr. Haldane’s method of detection and estimation, by means of suitably diluted 
blood, possesses the advantage of being delicate and distinctive, but requires good 
daylight, and cannot be carried out so rapidly as the flame-cap test can, It is, 
however, undoubtedly the most satisfactory method yet known of detecting and 
estimating minute proportions of carbon monoxide in the air, and should take its 
place amongst acknowledged methods in the chemical laboratory, 
3. Chemical Education in England and Germany. 
By Sir H. E. Roscoz, F.R.S. 
4. Report on the Teaching of Science in Elementary Schools. 
See Reports, p. 268. 
5. The Teaching of Science in Girls’ Schools. 
By L. Epna Watter, B.Sc., A.C.G.1. 
The object of teaching girls science at all is not to make them botanists, 
doctors, chemists, or engineers—at least below the age of fifteen—but to train 
their intelligence. There are two reasons why most schools fail so lamentably in 
the results achieved by what is intended to be science training; the first is that 
only the faculty of observation is as a rule cultivated, the second that the work is 
not commenced low enough down in the school. Botany, though so generally 
adopted, has a very limited educative value ; physiology, though called 2 science, 
is acarcely ever taught as a science at all; and domestic economy is quite 
pernicious. Physical geography has an educative function of its own, but, though 
of immense value, its strength does not lie in the direction of scientific training. 
‘What is wanted to obtain this pre-eminently important effect is a gently graduated 
scientific course beginning with the simplest experiments for quite young 
children, and gradually increasing in complexity till the girls reach the age of 
about sixteen. It should be recognised that from beginning to end the course 
should be practical in character and quantitative as far as possible. Such a course 
as this can be followed if practical arithmetic be made the starting-point, This 
Jeads naturally to elementary physics, chiefly hydrostatics, and finally to a course 
of elementary chemistry. For this latter no finer scheme could be suggested than 
that outlined in Dr. Armstrong’s contribution to the Report of the British 
‘Association Committee (Newcastle-on-Tyne meeting, 1889), which is of inesti- 
mable value to all who are interested in the teaching of chemistry. It is an 
important feature of the course I suggest that the children should use no text- 
‘books; their own notes written in their own words should form their books of 
reference. In this way their literary powers are also cultivated; but, above all, 
the children learn to rely on themselves. The aim of science training is to teach 
the girls to think for themselves, rely on themselves, and work for themselves. 
‘They must learn to do something, and this will never happen while science work 
is confined to mere lesson learning, 
: 
’ 
1896. 
ee 
9 
