L.— EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 213 



shadow of examination syllabuses. Where there is freedom from such 

 restraint, and individual pupils can be permitted to proceed at their 

 own speeds in inquiries initiated on their own motives, success is 

 assured, but in few schools are such conditions practicable; so that, in 

 the main, strict adherence to the heuristic method is a policy of perfec- 

 tion which may be aimed at but is rarely reached. 



A necessary condition of the research method of teaching science is 

 that the pupils themselves must consider the problems presented to 

 them as worth solving, and not merely laboratory exercises. Moreover, 

 the inquiries undertaken must be such as can lead to clear conclusions 

 when the experimental work is accurately performed. It may be doubted 

 whether the rusting of iron or the study of germination of beans and the 

 growth of seedlings fulfils the first of these conditions, and the common 

 adoption of these subjects of inquiry is due to custom and convenience 

 rather than to recognition of what most pupils consider to be worth 

 their efforts. It needed a Priestley and a Lavoisier to proceed from 

 the rusting of iron to the composition of air and water, and even such 

 an acute investigator as Galileo, though well aware that air has weight, 

 did not understand how this fact explained the working of the common 

 suction pump. If research methods are to be followed faithfully, and 

 what pupils want to discover about natural facts and phenomena is to 

 determine what they do, then teachers must be prepared to guide them 

 in scores of inquiries both in and out of the laboratory. Under the 

 exigencies of school work it is impracticable to contemplate such proce- 

 dure, and all that can be usefully attempted is to lead pupils to read 

 the book of Nature and to understand how difficult it is to obtain a 

 precise answer to what may seem the simplest question. 



The mission of school science should not, indeed, be only to provide 

 training in scientific method — valuable as tliis is to everyone. Such 

 training does cultivate painstaking and observant habits, and encourages 

 independent and intelligent reasoning, but it cannot be held in these 

 days that any one subject may be used for the general nourishment of 

 faculties which are thereby rendered more capable of assimilating other 

 subjects. Modern psychology, as well as everyday experience, has 

 disposed of this belief. If the doctrine of transfer of power were 

 psychologically sound, then as good a case could be made out for the 

 classical languages as for science, because they also may be taught so as 

 to develop the power of solving problems and of acquiring knowledge 

 at the same time. When, therefore, advocates of particular courses 

 of instruction state that they do not pretend to teach science, but are 

 concerned solely with method, they show unwise indifference to what 

 is known about educational values. Locke's disciplinary theory — that 

 the process of learning trains faculties for use in any fields, and that 

 the nature of the subject is of little consequence — can no longer be 

 entertained. It has now to be acknowledged that information obtained 

 in the years of school life is as important as the process of obtaining it ; 

 that, in other words, subject matter as well as the doctrine of formal 

 discipline must be taken into consideration in designing courses of 

 scientific instruction which will conform to the best educational 

 principles. 



