362 REPORT—1899. 
Department, and the preferences of managers and teachers, the Evening 
Continuation classes are to a great extent regulated by the public local 
demand, which rather seems to be for a continuation of the studies which 
have been begun in the Elementary Schools than for those practical 
subjects which are specially provided for by the Technical Instruction 
Act. 
The London School Board have just passed a series of resolutions on 
the subject of the teaching of science in their schools, and amongst others 
that ‘Experimental Science instruction was desirable for girls as well as 
for boys :’—that ‘scholars of about Standard IV. should have an oppor- 
tunity of doing some practical work themselves, such as linear (or other) 
measurement :’—and that ‘where some definite science is taught in the 
upper part of the school, the teaching of Experimental Science in the lower 
part of the school should lead up to it.’ The extension of the teaching of 
Science in the Board Schools has necessitated the Science demonstrators 
giving more and more attention to the preparing of the ordinary teachers 
for giving practical instruction in Science in their classes. These teachers 
have usually obtained certificates for one or more sciences under the 
Science and Art Department, but that does not necessarily qualify for the 
practical teaching of science according to modern views. Hence the need 
of the preparation above referred to. It would seem desirable that only 
those teachers who have some interest in, or aptness for, experimental 
work should be selected for this kind of training, and after having become 
thus qualified, they should be assigned, as far as possible, to this par- 
ticular work. To carry this out more thoroughly the Board have decided 
‘that Experimental Science classes for teachers be started under the Board 
in the autumn,’ and ‘that there be courses of Pedagogical Lectures to 
secure the practical teaching of Elementary Science, confined to teachers 
who have reached a certain standard of scientific knowledge of the subject 
on which the lectures are given.’ 
It is to be hoped that under the newly constituted Education Depart- 
ment far more attention will be given than heretofore to improving the 
conditions under which science is taught in schools. Especially is it im- 
portant that attention should be paid to the practical training of pupil 
teachers in the elements of scientific method. The time given to such 
work is altogether inadequate at present. But in some ways too much 
is often attempted, and from this point of view your Committee think it 
desirable to recall attention to the recommendations in the last paragraph 
of their Report for 1897, as up to the present time no action has keen taken 
by the Education Department. 
Isomerie Naphthalene Derivatives.—Report of the Committee, consisting 
of Professor W. A. Tirtpen (Chairman) and Dr. H. EK. ARrM- 
STRONG (Secretary). 
THE experiments on the etherification of betanaphthol and its derivatives, 
referred to in the previous report, have been continued by Mr. Davis, the 
formation of methylic and propylic ethers having also been investigated. 
Methylic, ethylic, and propylic alcohols have an almost identical effect. 
The results are of interest in comparison with those obtained by V. 
Meyer and others in the case of carboxylic acids. Meyer, it is well 
