ON SCIENCE IN SCHOOL CEKTIFICATE EXAMINATIONS. 473 



geography; but in any case descriptive lessons are required in which 

 the aim should be to impart broad ideas, and promote interest in Nature 

 rather than to train in practical methods applied to a limited field. 



It is desirable also, by means of general lectures, discussions, or 

 reading, to introduce into the teaching some account of the main 

 achievements of science and of the methods by wWch they have been 

 attained. Science must not be considered merely as a burden of material 

 fact and precise principle which needs a special type of mind to bear it. 

 There should be more of the spirit, and less of the valley of dry bones, 

 if science is to be of living interest, either during school life or afterwards. 

 Everyone should be given the opportunity of knowing something of the 

 lives and work of such men as Galileo and Newton, Faraday and Kelvin, 

 Pasteur and Lister, Darwin and Mendel, and many other pioneers of 

 science. One way of doing this is by lessons on the history of science, 

 biographies of discoverers, with studies of their successes and failures, 

 and outlines of the main road along which natural knowledge has 

 advanc^. It would be far better, from the point of view of general 

 education, to introduce courses of this kind, intended to direct attention 

 and stimulate interest in scientific greatness and its relation to modern 

 life, than to limit the teaching to dehumanised material of physics and 

 chemistry which leaves but little impression upon the minds of boys 

 if seen only ' in disconnection, dull and spiritless.' 



Under existing conditions, which are largely controlled by prescribed 

 syllabuses and external examinations, there is little opportunity for 

 teachers to direct attention to the useful applications of science on one 

 hand, or on the other to awaken interest in the solution of the mysteries 

 which surround us, though this could be done incidentally in connection 

 with lectures or practical work if the present pressure were removed. 



History and biography enable a comprehensive view of science to 

 be constructed which cannot be obtained by laboratory work. They 

 supply a solvent of that artificial barrier between literary studies and 

 science which a school time-table usually sets up. In the study of 

 hydrostatics, heat, current electricity, optics, and inorganic chemistiy, 

 the attention which has been given to laboratory work has succeeded 

 in developing the powers of doing and describing. The weak points 

 have been insufficient attention to the broader aspects and to scientific 

 discovery and invention as human achievements, and failure to con- 

 nect school work with the big applications of science by which mankind 

 is benefiting. The study of optics is seldom pursued to a useful 

 point, and in the teaching of mechanics there are more failures than 

 in other science subjects. The time-table is particularly overcrowded 

 during the last two years in the State-aided secondary schools ; the 

 work is over-compressed, and the philosophical aspects cannot, there- 

 fore, be presented effectively. The extension of the normal leaving 

 age to seventeen years would have a valuable effect in raising the 

 potential standard of scientific knowledge, and in spreading intelligent 

 appreciation of science throughout the country. 



At present, as instruction in science proceeds in the school, there is a 

 tendency for it to become detached from the facts and affairs of life, by 

 which alone stimulus and interest can be secured. It is important that 



