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SCIENCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 125 
on the part of the teacher; and its effectiveness will depend on his knowledge, 
clearness, method, and sympathy with his pupils. Nothing will be gained by 
circumscribing these subjects by any general syllabus; they may safely be 
left to the discretion of the masters who teach them. 
“2. And for scientific training we are decidedly of opinion that the subjects 
which have paramount claims are Experimental Physics, Elementary Chemistry, 
and Botany.’ 
Canon Wilson, the only surviving member of the British Asso- 
ciation Committee, in his paper on ‘Teaching Natural Science in 
Schools,’ published in 1867 in a volume entitled ‘ Essays on a Liberal 
Education,’ gave a full account of the methods adopted in introducing 
‘science teaching in Rugby School. Botany was then selected as the 
best subject for beginning to train boys in scientific methods, and it 
was followed by experimental physics, the two being claimed as standard 
subjects for the scientific teaching in schools. As to other subjects, 
Chemistry was not considered suitable for lecture instruction, and few 
laboratories then existed in which the necessary practical knowledge 
for its intelligent study could be obtained; Geology ‘lies outside the 
subjects which best illustrate scientific method,’ and ‘ Physiology 
cannot be taught to classes at school. Nor ought it to be learnt before 
Physics and Chemistry.’ 
Though most of the instruction was given by means of experimental 
lectures, the main aim of the best science teachers was the same in 
those days as now—namely, to train in independent observation and 
reasoning. Canon Wilson, in the essay to which reference has been 
made already, states this principle in words which possess the per- 
sistence of truth, and are, therefore, worthy of repetition in our own 
time—fifty years after they were written :— 
‘Theory and experience alike convince me that the master who is teaching 
a class quite unfamiliar with scientific method ought to make his class teach 
themselves, by thinking out the subject of the Jecture with them, taking up 
their suggestions and illustrations, criticising them, hunting them down, and 
proving a suggestion barren or an illustration inapt; starting them on a fresh 
scent when they are at fault, reminding them of some familiar fact they had 
overlooked, and so eliciting out of the chaos of vague notions that are afloat 
on the matter in hand, be it the laws of motion, the evaporation of water, or 
the origin of the Drift, something of order, and concatenation, and interest, 
before the key to the mystery is given, even if after all it has to be given. 
Training to think, not to be a mechanic or surveyor, must be first and foremost 
as his object. So valuable are the subjects intrinsically, and such excellent 
models do they provide, that the most stupid and didactic teaching will not 
be useless; but it will not be the same source of power that ‘‘the method of 
investigation ” will be in. the hands of a good master. Some few will work out 
a logic of proof and a logic of discovery, when the facts and laws fhat are 
discovered and proved have had time to lie and crystallise in their minds. 
But imbued with scientific method they scarcely will be, unless it springs up 
spontaneously in them. 
‘For all classes, except those which are beginning, the union of the two 
methods is best. If they have once thoroughly learnt that the truths of 
science are to be got from what they see, and not from the assertions of a 
master or a text-book, they can never quite forget it, and allow their science 
to exist in a cloud-world apart from the earth. And undoubtedly the rigid 
and exact teaching from a book, insuring a complete and formularised and 
producible knowledge, is very valuable, especially with older classes.’ 
When these words were written it seems to have been supposed 
