ON SCIENCE IN SCHOOL CERTIFICATE EXAMINATIONS. 459 

 5. Training in Scientific Method through the Study of Biology. 



The claims of biology to a place in tlie curriculum of schools — ^its value 

 in studying living things, its bearing on human life, its enquiry into the 

 wide questions of heredity and evolution — have been acknowledged in 

 many quarters, but it is not often urged that through the study of biology 

 a training in scientific method can be given. 



Prof. Bateson, in the Huxley Centenary Number of Nature, said 

 of that great biologist, ' No one better than Huxley knew that some day 

 the problems of life must be investigated by the methods of physical 

 science, if biological speculation is not to degenerate into a barren debate.' 

 It will be of interest to quote what Huxley himself said in his lecture ' On 

 the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences,' though we think 

 he would not now describe experiment as ' artificial observation.' 



He said ' The subject matter of biological science is different from that 

 of other sciences, but the methods of all are identical ; and these methods 

 are : — 



1. Observation of facts — including under this head that artificial 

 observation which is called experiment. 



2. That process of tying up similar facts into bundles, ticketed and 

 ready for use, which is called Comparison and Classification — the results 

 of the process, the ticketed bundle, being named General Propositions. 



3. Deduction, which takes us from the general proposition to facts 

 again — teaches us, if I may so say, to anticipate from the ticket what is 

 inside the bundle. And finally — 



4. Verification, which is the process of ascertaining whether, in point 

 of fact, our anticipation is a correct one. 



Such are the methods of all science whatsoever.' 



This scientific method of studying biology presents many difficulties 

 in schools, and involves much more thought and time on the part of the 

 teacher than teaching by imparting information, but it can be done and 

 is of much greater value. 



With regard to the observation of facts it is unsatisfactory for the 

 teacher to show the class one or two experiments, or even for the pupils 

 themselves to make one or two experiments, and then proceed to general 

 propositions. In biology generalisations should not be made on in- 

 sufficient data any more than in other science. As many experiments 

 should be made as possible in the lesson, and records can be kept each 

 year of the results. 



If this is done the pupils, after they have made their own experiments, 

 can have before them the results of hundreds of similar experiments in 

 addition to their own, before they generalise, and yet not spend a great 

 amount of time in any one year. 



Take, for example, the green plant, ' the main link between the 

 inorganic and the organic ' as it has been called, and its work in photo- 

 synthesis, the work on which the life of the world depends. It is possible, 

 for some successive years at all events, to arrange that each year each 

 pupil investigating the formation of sugar and starch by green leaves in 

 the presence of light and carbon dioxide, shall take leaves other than 



