ON SCIENCE IN SCHOOL CERTIFICATE EXAMINATIONS. 451 



received from 7 to 50 per cent, of the total number of graduates in 

 training for teaching. Taking the aggregate of the figures received the 

 percentage is 27. 



Neither in the Board of Education's Report of 1925 nor in com- 

 munications received from training colleges is there any mention of the 

 desirability of disassociating, in the interests of the teaching of science in 

 schools, the ideas of academic honours and specialisation in studies. In 

 the University of London — and the majority of graduates in training for 

 teaching science are London graduates — honours are awarded on the B.Sc, 

 (general) examination under the same conditions as for the B.Sc. (special) 

 examination, that is to say, a student can obtain honours on a three- 

 subjects course instead of on a principal and subsidiary subjects course. 

 It would seem that heads of training departments and heads of university 

 science departments might be got to agree on a policy of recommending 

 students who intend to teach science in schools to take the B.Sc. (general) 

 in preference to the B.Sc. (special) course. Many of the students are 

 probably deterred from doing so by the prestige that specialised courses 

 have acquired through association with honours. 



At universities where a diploma in education is conferred, the post- 

 graduate course for intending teachers naturally conforms to the syllabus 

 for the diploma. The main features of a diploma syllabus include : — 



1. Theory, principles, and aim of Education. 



2. History of Education. 



3. Methods of teaching special subjects or groups of subjects. 



4. Psychology. 



5. School Practice. 



6. Essays. 



A slightly different emphasis is placed upon these subjects by different 

 universities ; in some the history of education is divided into a compiilsory 

 section — mainly dealing with the educational system of England and its 

 recent history — and an optional section of a more specialised character, 

 alternative to an advanced course on educational psychology, including 

 practical psychology. Some universities also include hygiene in their 

 syllabus, and some colleges offer courses in voice production, music, 

 drawing, handcraft, and physical training. 



II. The Two-Year Training Courses. 



These courses are not usually taken by men and women who intend to 

 teach in secondary schools, but by those who normally proceed to primary 

 schools. In the two-year course science subjects are now optional. The 

 table on page 532 shows the extent- to which they were offered at the 

 Teachers' Certificate Examination in 1915 and 1927. 



In some two-year colleges a much larger proportion of the students 

 include science in their course than is indicated by the figures, since many 

 students taking other principal subjects do include science as a subsidiary. 

 At the Goldsmiths' College, London, about half the men students following 

 the ordinary two-year course, include elementary science (chemistry, 

 physics, and nature study) in their first year's academic course, taking 

 lectures and practical demonstration work in the laboratory. The 



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