SCIENCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 157 
learns to be patient, careful, accurate, inventive. He acquires the power of 
construction and of initiative. 
(c) In a workshop a boy lives in the atmosphere of mechanics and physics, 
and is continually either making or reading engineering drawings. He has 
the chance to acquire a mechanical sense, and to learn by intuition the signifi- 
cance of force, speed, acceleration, rotation. He has many opportunities of 
using measuring instruments, and of making physical measurements. He 
learns machine drawing, and mechanical drawing is becoming daily of more 
interest and importance—even to the non-specialist. A drawing-office can be 
made the very heart of mathematical teaching, as it is the centre of engineering 
works. Very young boys can be effectively employed in a drawing-office, and 
they learn in a practical way many of the principles of geometry. 
(d) Incidentally, boys are given a vocational teaching. There are many 
professions where a knowledge of technical work is essential. A craftsman’s 
knowledge is of value to barristers, solicitors, clergymen, social workers, land- 
owners, and all whose aim in life is ‘ to do.’ 
2. Romance of Science.—It is about fifty years ago since science was intro- 
duced into the Public Schools. This was done largely by the influence of 
Huxley and Tyndall, and the form it first took was that of demonstration 
lectures. The object in view was to interest the sons of the governing classes 
in the astonishing discoveries that were being made, and to inspire them with 
the love of science. Many a boy must have found inspiration in these lectures, 
but for the great mass of boys the results on the whole were not successful, 
and the chief reason for this is that boys like to do things for themselves 
rather than watch other people doing them. They want a share in the doing, 
and to investigate for themselves. Some years later a change came, and the 
lecture theatre gave place to the laboratory. Boys were set to work for them- 
selves. The heuristic method was emphasised, and courses were arranged in 
physical measurements, chemical experiments, and nature study. This method 
is now well established in schools, and forms the basis of most schemes of 
study and syllabuses for examinations. It would seem, however, that this 
necessary laboratory work has driven the more inspiring experiments into the 
background. At the moment it is important to return to the lecture theatre, 
to come into contact again with striking experiments, the history and develop- 
ment of discoveries, the lives of the great; in fact, to the romance of science. 
It is the romance of science which contains within itself the great inspiration, 
and the first duty of the teacher is to inspire boys with an awakening love of the 
natural world and bring them to the verge of knowledge where lies the mystery. 
There are difficulties in the way: of holding the balance between the two 
methods. Romance of science opens out ideals, whilst physical measurement 
trains for exact work in investigation. Both aims are necessary. The regular 
laboratory work should therefore go on pari passu with any system of demonstra- 
tion experiments. 
A suggestion may be made for the ‘Romance of Science’ experiments. 
Groups of Forms, Senior, Junior, or Preparatory, may be organised to prepare 
an exhibition of experiments and demonstrations. The masters apportion the 
work to groups of boys, and these groups prepare the exhibits and experiments. 
They make the diagrams and sketches required, write up explanatory and 
historical matter, work the experiments, and explain the exhibits. Such 
exhibitions can be left in working order for the instruction of the science 
classes. Mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology, provide a host of such exhibits. 
Junior Forms may set up a series of well-known historical experiments ; Senior 
boys may be encouraged to illustrate modern advances. There are many books 
amongst the classics in science which will form the basis of such an exhibition. 
The ‘ Heat and Sound’ of Tyndall; Ball’s ‘ Experimental Mechanics,’ or Perry’s 
“Steam Engine’; Thompson’s ‘Light: Visible and Invisible’: Wright on 
‘Projection,’ Boys’s ‘Soap Bubbles’ or Perry’s ‘Tops’; Worthington’s 
‘Splash of a Drop’; Lodge’s ‘ Pioneers of Science.’ There are fascinating 
experiments on the discharge through rarefied gases, with radium and X-rays, 
vibrating springs, liquid air, rotating bodies; many chemical experiments and 
biological exhibits. Lectures or exhibits can be prepared to illustrate the life 
and works of a great investigator—men lke Faraday, Dalton, Darwin, Pasteur. 
