TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 619 
distinguished from most others in the country by the completeness of their 
obligatory courses and by holding an entrance examination, which all students 
entering upon such courses were required to pass, as well as by the efforts that 
were made to consider the capabilities of the students and to meet their 
requirements. 
My views were first made public in 1884, when a scheme of instruction was put 
forward which was eventually developed into that known as the heuristic 
method. My experience of the method has been gained both in my own school 
and by watching its application by my pupils and others in a variety 
of schools—by Messrs. Gordon and Heller in schools under the School Board 
for London; by Mr. W. M. Heller, of late years, on a very large scale in Irish 
elementary schools; in a number of girls’ schools; in Christ’s Hospital school; 
and during over twenty years in one of the most successful modern secondary 
schools in the country, where my four sons have been educated, which has 
grown up at my doors, under a head-master who has been a warm advocate 
of heuristic teaching. 
The subject is discussed so fully in my book on ‘ The Teaching of Scientific 
Method’ (Macmillan & Co., London, 1903; 2nd ed. 1911) that it is unneces- 
sary to say anything of the method, beyond pointing out that it involves put- 
ting the learner in the position of inquirer and insisting that the purpose with 
which an experiment is made shall be fully appreciated before it is carried 
out and that the bearing of the result on the question asked at the beginning 
shall be fully considered—each successive experiment being devised to promote 
the solution of the problem undertaken and to justify the solution arrived at. 
One feature of the work is the stress laid on an account being written of the 
work in proper literary form, stage by stage, as the inquiry is carried on: the 
art of making experiments is the one before all others to be cultivated by such 
work; therefore it is essential that a statement of the motive with which an 
experiment is made shall be written out before proceeding. 
The results obtained either by myself or through the agency of those whom 
I have trained have been most encouraging; but it has only been too obvious 
that those who attempt to put it in practice, after they have been under the 
influence of didactic and dogmatic teaching, have the greatest difficulty in ac- 
quiring the right habit of mind, so that, probably, not many teachers have really 
learnt to appreciate the method and its possibilities : it is one that involves too 
much thinking to please the majority; thinking is always troublesome work. 
But the movement has had an influence in many quarters and has even affected 
literary subjects : an ideal has been introduced into teaching the application of 
which is new, though it is not new in principle. Our conventional method of 
teaching is not one which favours the development of an inquiring habit—we 
give demonstrations and we call upon students to verify statements that are 
made to them; but we are so occupied in stating results, that we do not explain 
how the results were arrived at and what led up to them. As a rule, 
only those who have done research work know what constitutes an experiment. 
My own experience with students has satisfied me that they not only vary 
in ability but that the different classes are of very different types of mind : 
the engineer tends to be constructive but not analytical; the analytical intro- 
spective habit of mind is more highly developed in the chemist; the biologist 
rarely has mathematical proclivities. 
It is useless to attempt to teach all in the same way and many can learn 
only very little. 
The explanation of Huxley’s failure to forecast the future of Science lies, 
apparently, in the fact that men generally are not attuned to her ways. I am 
of sterling worth, who was a whole-hearted believer in Science—the late 
Dr. Gladstone : under his influence a most important and successful beginning 
was made to give very elementary lessons in scientific method in the schools; 
the experiment came to ‘an end even before his death: the work done by the 
teacher was so highly appreciated that he was attracted elsewhere and had no 
proper successor. 
We seem, in all things, to depend on some one man: it will rest with Science 
to remedy this disability from which we suffer so much. 
