ON SCIENCE IN SCHOOL CERTIFICATE EXAMINATIONS. 471 



answer given by Nature to the question put to it : on the method to 

 be adopted for ehciting the answer, on its significance when obtained, 

 and on the degree of accuracy with which it can be credited. 



Preliminary Work to Systematic Instruction in Science. — It is 

 because of the demand thus made on the reasoning powers that in 1910 

 a Joint Committee of the Mathematical Association and the Association 

 of Public School Science Masters expressed the decided opinion that 

 systematic work in science should not be taken at too early a stage; 

 laying down that ' It is undesirable that either formal physics or 

 chemistry be taught in Preparatory Schools,' and that 'Questions 

 should not be set in formal physics or chemistry at the entrance or 

 entrance scholarship examinations to the Public Schools.' The same 

 Committee, however, recommended that instruction which could be 

 taken at an early stage, in elementary practical measurements of length, 

 area, volume, mass, and density, should be given by the mathematical 

 staff and not by the science staff. Such work can be done in an ordinary 

 class-room with the simplest apparatus, and is thus more easily co- 

 ordinated with the mathematical lessons than when carried on in a 

 room specially devoted to it. The course of measurements, including 

 the use of simple balances, need very seldom exceed twenty hours of 

 practical work; and there can be no doubt that it is of the highest 

 value in giving actuality to the mathematical teaching. Unfortunately, 

 mathematical teachers have often been found to have little sympathy 

 with these practical methods of illustration. 



Introductory work in science, whether in preparatory schools or 

 in the lower forms of State-aided secondary schools, should consist 

 of such elementary practical measurements as are referred to above, 

 and of a course intended to interest pupils in natural knowledge and 

 to encourage observations of animal and plant life, earth and sky, and 

 of everyday phenomena manifested in them. Such observations pro- 

 vide material for cultivating the art of expression, and with suitable 

 reading or descriptive lessons will create and foster attention to many 

 aspects of Nature. 



Laboratory Methods and Scope. — In laboratory courses two methods 

 of instruction may be distinguished — the subject-method and the 

 problem-method — one or both of which may be followed, or, more often, 

 a combination of the two. The subject-method may be described as a 

 system of impressing fundamental properties and principles upon the 

 minds of pupils by means of a graduated course of experimental exer- 

 cises. The pupils usually work independently or in pairs, but in some 

 schools the same exercises are performed by a whole class simulta- 

 neously as a form of drill, in which case they tend to become of the type 

 of cookery-book recipes rather than that of scientific experiment. 



The problem -method aims at suggesting a motive and purpose for 

 every experiment, and thus of creating the spirit of experimental 

 scientific inquiry. It consists in facing a problem, and by means of 

 experiment endeavouring to solve it and related questions which arise 

 during the work. The intention is not, as is sometimes supposed, to 

 make pupils discover for themselves laws and principles previously un- 

 known to them, though to some extent this can be done, but rather to 



