SCIENCE IN SECONDARY. SCHOOLS. 131 
probable that the importance of the-subject is better realised now than 
*t was a few years ago. 
The following table, which is based upon the one presented to the 
Dublin meeting, shows what is believed to be the present position : — 
Usual science subjects in schools where the leaving age is eighteen and 
over. 
Average Ages: 
Subject 101 
aay dig 1 A itd Vee is 
Nature Study 
Elementary Physical Mea- | 
surements 
Elementary Heat . 
General Physics 
Systematic Chemistry . 
Biology 
=== 
a 
———————————— 
Elementary Chemistry. — 
— 
Sound 
(c) Public Secondary Schools for Girls. 
(A Memoraridum based on replies sent in by 171 typical schools to 
a questionnaire issued by the Association of Science Mistresses. 
November 1916.) 
Some science forms part of the curriculum throughout the whole 
of the pre-specialisation period in almost every public secondary school 
for girls. In one or two-exceptional cases the continuous course. is 
broken at a certain stage for one year. 
In nearly every school nature study forms the basis of the work 
with children below eleven or twelve years of age. For the following 
two or three years there is, most often, a continuous course of elemen- 
tary physics and chemistry treated experimentally. Though the total 
time given to science at this stage does not, as a rule, exceed two hours 
per week this experimental course frequently runs concurrently with 
a course of lessons in some other subject, as hygiene. Botany is 
most commonly taught above this stage, but in a considerable number 
of the larger schools there are alternative courses of botany and 
chemistry, and a few schools make chemistry their main subject. 
Physics is rarely taught above a very elementary standard. 
_ In very few cases does the science course appear to be determined 
by correlation with courses of lessons in the domestic arts. 
mi Bt Bh-or bes Py bogbuy rae 
