150 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIeNCE.—1917. 
Lower C.—The work consists of object courses of a heuristic nature. These 
boys need not be re-graded. 
D. Natural knowledge and practical work in connexion with mathematics 
co-ordinated with similar work begun at the preparatory school. 
II. Aims of the Compulsory Science. 
1. Training in scientific method by experimental investigation. 
2. Conveying useful information and fixing it by practical exercises. 
8. Arousing interest and discovering special aptitude for science. 
4. Emphasising the human aspect of the work as much as possible by using 
daily-life phenomena, practical applications, machines, agricultural processes, 
&c., as the material wherever possible. 
III. Freedom of the Teacher. 
Within the above principles complete freedom should be left to the teacher 
in accordance with his interests and opportunities. He should arrange his own 
courses, syllabuses, &c., decide what material he employs for any of the above 
objects, and whether he achieves them by ‘ object,’ ‘ subject,’ ‘ problem,’ or any 
other method. 
IV. The ‘Science for All’ should be carefully co-ordinated with the other 
work of the school—more especially the mathematics and geography. Where 
essential work is not adequately dealt with under these subjects, it must be 
meluded in the science course—e.g., elementary mechanics with sufficient prac- 
tical work, and elementary physiography. 
V. Every school should be free to create its own syllabuses and treatment 
of them, provided the two vital essentials of conducting experimental investiga- 
tions and emphasising the human aspects of the subject are attained. 
Some examples are here given—they are not prescribed or even recom- 
mended but simply selected as illustrating the above points. 
A. A course taken by boys in Lower C as an introduction to the experimental 
method. 
Experimental Investigation of Chalk. 
Experiments to be done by the boys themselves in the laboratory, with 
occasional lecture demonstrations and discussions to connect up the results 
arrived at and for those experiments which are unsuitable for the boys to 
perform at this stage, such as the electrolysis of fused calcium chloride. 
Examine chalk, notice its physical properties, and find out if it is soluble 
in water. Is it an element or a compound? Effect of heat on it. Does it 
change in weight when heated? 
Collect the gas given off on heating chalk in a silica tube. Study the pro- 
perties of this gas. The same gas is given off when chalk is treated with acids, 
and this is a more convenient way of making it. 
The gas will not support the combustion of most substances. Try if burning 
phosphorus and magnesium will continue to burn the gas. The latter con- 
tinues to burn with a spluttering noise. The residue left is composed of a 
white substance, similar to the ash left when magnesium burns in air or oxygen 
and black specks. 
This white ash is a compound of magnesium and oxygen, therefore the gas 
contains oxygen. Separate the black specks from the white ash by treating the 
whole ash with hydrochloric acid; wash with water—collect and dry. The 
black stuff looks like charcoal. It burns in air or oxygen and forms a gas 
which turns lime-water milky. But carbon burns in air and forms the same gas. 
Therefore the black specks are carbon, and the gas from the chalk is composed 
of carbon and oxygen. We call it carbon dioxide or carbonic acid gas. 
Return to the residue left when all the gas has been driven off by heating 
chalk. It is a white substance. Try the action of water on it. Is it soluble in 
water? Shake it up with water filter, and blow air from the lungs into the 
clear filtrate. It turns milky. It is lime-water, Excursions here into the 
slaking of quicklime, and the uses of slaked lime. Demonstration of the pre- 
paration of calcium by the electrolysis of fused calcium chloride, 
