‘ SCIENCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 185 
(for fear of misunderstanding) that this giving of knowledge is not to 
be confounded with the mere imparting of ‘ facts,’ It implies in the 
pupil a genuine pursuit of knowledge—an activity, guided by the 
teacher but motived from within, which represents, so far as the neces- 
sarily artificial conditions of teaching permit, the historic activities 
of scientific minds working at their best. 
Principles and Motives in Teaching.—In selecting what is to be 
taught the teacher must take account not only of the intrinsic worth 
of the knowledge but also of the varying powers and interests of 
immature minds at different ages. Are there any general principles 
to guide him in ordering his curriculum to meet their needs? The 
obvious maxim that the easy things should come first and the more 
difficult things later is not in itself sufficient, for it gives no principle 
for determining what is easy and what is difficult from the point of 
view of the pupil. Some of the simplest ideas in science may prove 
to be quite out of the natural range of activity of young minds because 
they appeal effectively only to a riper experience or to a developed 
scientific interest, It is, indeed, for these reasons that such ideas 
have often emerged late rather than early in the history of a science. 
Can we, then, find criteria which will discriminate between things 
suitable and things unsuitable for pupils at different stages of pro- 
gress? In other words, is there a normal course of development of 
the scientific interest in the young? 
In considering this question we must, in view of the infinite variety 
of human minds, be on our guard against sweeping and dogmatic 
generalisations. At best we can hope to discover laws that hold good, 
as Aristotle said, émi ro wodv : rules that give general guidance but 
do not free the teacher from the obligation to treat individual pupils 
in accordance with their special natures and needs. Attacking the 
problem in this modest spirit, we may usefully note that, among the 
motives which have prompted men to make those persistent attempts 
to understand nature which we call science, three have always been 
especially conspicuous. First, and in a sense foremost, is delight in 
the intrinsic beauty and charm of natural phenomena—delight in the 
forms and ways of plants and animals, in the splendour of the heavens, 
in the surprising behaviour and transformations of matter under 
certain assignable conditions. To use a familiar phrase, the foundation 
of science is the love of nature. Next, we may distinguish the motive 
that springs from the perception that man can exploit the forces of 
nature for his own purposes only if he is prepared to take the trouble 
to understand them—that man must become the interpreter of nature 
if nature is to become the handmaid of man. This is the motive that 
has created the vast fabric of ‘ applied science.’ Lastly, there is the 
craving for theoretical completeness and unity—the motive that 
prompts men on one hand to seek ‘ fundamental principles ’ in nature, 
and on the other to organise their ideas about the different aspects or 
departments of nature into closely knitted logical systems. These 
three—which may be called the ‘ wonder motive ’ (in the absence of a 
better term), the ‘ utility motive,’ and the ‘ systematising motive ’— 
are not, of course, to be thought of as working in isolation. In differing 
