SCIENCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 145 
dary Schools. Accordingly the present Committee passed the following 
resolution and issued it for publication in November 1916:— 
‘ That in order to secure freedom of action for teachers of science 
in schools, and to prevent the instruction from becoming 
stereotyped, it is undesirable for any examining authority 
to prescribe a detailed syllabus in science for use in schools, 
whether intended as the basis of examinations or otherwise.’ 
It is of special importance to general science teaching that schools 
examination by an external authority should be based upon the work of 
the individual school. We recommend also that all schools should be 
inspected, that examiners should consult teachers before setting 
question-papers, and that teachers should exercise great care in pre- 
paring syllabuses of instruction accompanied by illustrative detail suffi- 
cient to show clearly the aim, method, and limits of the courses. 
Co-operation between inspectors and examiners should be encouraged. 
Inspectors and examiners, as well as teachers, should be trained for 
their work, seeing that testing by the inexpert is an expensive farce. 
An effective science course being guaranteed for every inspected 
school, it will be natural and desirable that science should form an 
important subject in such school examinations as those proposed for 
the ‘ First Examination ’ by the Board of Education in Circular 849. 
It should not be grouped with mathematics in the sense that a pass in 
science may excuse mathematics, or vice versa. In order to obtain a 
certificate a candidate should reach a satisfactory standard in a sub- 
stantial portion of the school curriculum, considerable option being 
allowed as to subjects in which the pass is demanded. The pupils 
should be required to pursue a wider curriculum than would suffice for 
the passing of the test, and the headmaster should guarantee this, and 
that the course has been followed for a sufficient period to ensure a 
training of real value. It would be unwise to make passing in science 
compulsory ; the aim should rather be to remove compulsion in other 
subjects. The teaching of science, as of other subjects, has suffered 
from academic tradition ; rigidity of examination requirements is adverse 
to progress by educational experiments. Af the same time it is impor- 
tant that science should not be placed in a position inferior to classics, 
modern ‘humanistic’ studies, or mathematics, in the examinations 
which form the gate to university or professional courses, to the Army, 
and to junior appointments of the Civil Service. 
The examinations for the 1st Division of the Civil Service do not 
directly come within the reference of this Committee; but we have to 
report evidence that boys have been discouraged from the study of 
science in the great Public Schools through the mistaken view that 
scientific knowledge and training in experimental method were of little 
use to administrators, and that the allotment of marks in this and other 
competitions has tended to the neglect of science. The Consultative 
Committee, in its reports to the Board of Education on Scholarships 
for Higher Education, states: ‘It is desirable in the national interest 
that after the war the Public Schools should devote more energy to 
scientific and practical training.’ We endorse this statement and regret 
1917, L 
