138 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE.—1917. 
experiment, or even seeing an experiment performed, cannot give that 
security of knowledge which practical contact affords. 
Experience shows that when scientific knowledge has been secured 
by practical werk it becomes part of the permanent mental equipment 
of the pupil. The laboratory is, further, the one place where the pupil 
learns to acquire first-hand evidence, and to distinguish between that 
and information obtained verbally or by reading; for this reason also 
it alone fulfils an essential function in an educational course. 
It is possible to use scientific method in the study of history, lan- 
guages, and other literary subjects, but applied in this way the method 
can never be accepted as providing the same means of training as 
laboratory experiment. 
Distinction between Manual Training and Hxperiment.—Although 
the principle of ‘learning by doing’ is followed also in courses of 
manual instruction in which each pupil is impressed with the necessity 
of relying upon himself, of arranging and carrying out his work in an 
orderly manner, and of interpreting instructions accurately, and though 
other advantages may be justly claimed for such work, yet there is 
always a decided difference between the best scheme of workshop 
exercises and the experimental work of a rightly arranged experimental 
course. In the laboratory the development of dexterity and skill is 
only a secondary consideration, and the attention is fastened on the 
answer given by Nature to the question put to it: on the method to 
be adopted for eliciting the answer, on its significance when obtained, 
and on the degree of accuracy with which it can be credited. 
Preliminary Work to Systematic Instruction im Science.—It is 
because of the demand thus made on the reasoning powers that in 1910 
a Joint Committee of the Mathematical Association and the Association 
of Public School Science Masters expressed the decided opinion that 
systematic work in science should not be taken at too early a stage; 
laying down that ‘It is undesirable that either formal physics or 
chemistry be taught in Preparatory Schools,’ and that ‘ Questions 
should not be set in formal physics or chemistry at the entrance or 
entrance scholarship examinations to the Public Schools.’ The same 
Committee, however, recommended that instruction which could. be 
taken at an early stage, in elementary practical measurements of length, 
area, volume, mass, and density, should be given by the mathematical 
staff and not by the science staff. Such work can be done in an ordinary 
class-room with the simplest apparatus, and is thus more easily co- 
ordinated with the mathematical lessons than when carried on in a 
room specially deyoted to it. The course of measurements, including 
the use of simple balances, need very seldom exceed twenty hours of 
practical work; and there can be no doubt that it is of the highest 
value in giving actuality to the mathematical teaching. Unfortunately, 
mathematical teachers have often been found to have little sympathy 
with these practical methods of illustration. 
Introductory work in science, whether in preparatory schools or 
in the lower forms of State-aided secondary schools, should consist 
of such elementary practical measurements as are referred to above, 
and of a course intended to interest pupils in natural knowledge and 
