L, EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 211 



principles of Pestalozzi as to tlie sequence in which facts and ideas 

 should be presented and be related to stages of development, in order 

 to be effective in creating or fostering natural interests in the mind of 

 the cliild. Scientific instruction implies, therefore, not alone knowledge 

 that is best for use in life, but knowledge adapted to the normal course 

 of mental development. Both substance and method should be judged 

 by the criterion of what is of greatest immediate worth or nearest to the 

 pupil's interests at the moment. When this standard of psychological 

 suitability is applied to the school science courses now usually followed, 

 it must be confessed that they rarely reach it, many topics and much 

 material being remote from the pupil's natural interests and needs. 



The truth is that in the design of science courses for schools ' triai- 

 and-error ' methods have been followed. In the absence of accurate 

 knowledge these are the only possible methods of construction, but 

 sufficient is now known of child psychology to produce a scheme of 

 scientific instruction which represents not merely the views of advocates 

 of particular subjects, but is biologically sound because it is in accord 

 with the principles of mental growth, and, therefore, with those of 

 educational science. When instruction in science was first introduced 

 into schools its character was determined by insight and conviction 

 rather than by mental needs or interests; so later, when practical work 

 came to be regarded as an essential part of such instruction, its nature 

 and scope represented what certain authorities believed pupils should 

 do, instead of what they were capable of doing with intelligence and 

 purpose. Practical chemistry became drill in the test-tubing operations 

 of qualitative analysis, and the result was so unsatisfactory from the 

 points of view of both science and education that when Professor Arm- 

 strong put forward a scheme of instruction devised by him, in which 

 intelligent experimentation took the place of routine exercises, acknow- 

 ledgment of its superior educational value could not be withheld, and 

 for thirty years its principles have influenced the greater part of the 

 science teaching in our schools. 



In its aims the ' heuristic ' methods of studying science energetically 

 advocated by Professor Armstrong were much the same as those asso- 

 ciated with the names of other educational reformers. Education in 

 every age tends to a condition of scholasticism, and practical science 

 teaching is no exception to this general rule, its trend being towards 

 ritual, after which a revolt follows in the natural order of events. 

 Comenius, with his insistence upon sense perception as the foundation 

 of early training — ' Leave nothing, ' he said, ' until it has been impressed 

 by means of the ear, the eye, the tongue, the hand'; John Dury 

 among the Commonwealth writers who urged that pupils should be 

 guided to observe all things and reflect upon them ; Locke, with his 

 use of sciences not to bring about ' a variety and stock of knowledge, 

 l)ut a variety and freedom of thinking ' ; and Rousseau, who would 

 ' measure, reason, weigh, compare,' not in order to teach particular 

 sciences, but to develop methods of learning them — all these were in 

 different degrees apostles of the same gospel of education according to 

 Nature, and the development of a scientific habit of mind as the inten- 

 tion of instruction. What Rousseau persistently lu-ged in this direction 



