480 REPORTS ON THE STATE OP SCIENCE, ETC. 



images, internal reflection, and dispersions will allow the pupil to deal with 

 what he ' wants to know about ' — viz., searchlights, prisms, lenses, the eye, 

 spectacles, magnifying glasses, telescopes, microscopes, rainbows, the 'spectrum, 

 and fluorescence. 



In the subject of sound, waves and frequency are practically all the average 

 boy requires in addition to the ear, Doppler effect, siren, gramophones, and 

 Claxon horn. In all these he is interested. 



After magnetism, electro-magnets, and telegraphs, the boy reaches his 

 electrical paradise. The effects of a current and its measurements by any of 

 these effects, B.O.T. unit of current, ammeters, voltmeters, microphone, tele- 

 phone, dynamo, magnets, motor, X-rays, wireless telegraphy, electrical energy 

 and power, Watt lamps, wirinct of houses — these abolish all need of punishment 

 for lack of industry in trying to understand physical laws ; indeed, they help 

 that understanding. 



In this scheme emphasis has been laid especially on those aspects of the 

 work which make the subject alive and personal ; this treatment does not 

 exclude a grasp of those elementary laws with which an educated man should 

 be familiar. It only insists on associating such laws with their practical 

 applications. This generalised science scheme for those boys who are not 

 pursuing the subject any further has been evolved during ten years at a school. 

 Ill arriving at its present stage, which is far from perfect, some golden rules 

 have been applied : 



1. Make sure of the landscape ; do not start the boy on a niggling bit of 

 formal science. 



2. Exclude rigorously any work, practical or otherwise, which is not worth 

 doing for itself. 



3. Some work is worth doing because it is valuable educationally — e.g., 

 experimental investigations. Other work is worth doing not only because it 

 has educational value ; it also concerns itself with matters which occur in the 

 averaj^e life of an educated citizen who ie not actively concerned with a 

 scientific career. 



4. Some work is only contributory to the further study of science beyond 

 what is necessary for a general education. This work is an unjustifiable waste 

 of time for those boys who will never study science further. 



5. Be suspicious of anything which occurs in any existing examination 

 syllabus. It is usually there for the convenience of the examiner, or because 

 it is contributory to the formal study of science. 



6. Consider the conditions of the school and the personal equation of th© 

 teachers rather than examinations in drawing up a syllabus for the average boy. 



His need is to understand (1) the multifarious ways in which the results 

 of scientific investigation affect his daily life, (2) the experimental methods 

 by which the natural phenomena of daily life are being investigated, (3) whilst 

 knowing the value of an expert, none the less to be confident and resourceful 

 within his own limitations. 



II. Science in a Public School. 



By F. W. Sanderson, late Headmaster, Oundle School. 



The course here outlined indicates the kind of work which may be done in 

 schools by boys below the age at which specialising begins. This age depends 

 upon the type of school and the leaving age, and varies with the tastes and 

 capacities of individual boys. In a Public School where the leaving age i.<? 

 nineteen the specialising age is about seventeen years. The course presented 

 applies to boys below the age of seventeen — i.e., to boys of the Preparatory 

 School age, and to the lower and middle forms of the Public School. Th© 

 methods proposed are based on the belief that the early stages of science 

 teaching may be taken through applied science. Science, like history, may 

 with advantage be read backwards. Pure science and pure mathematics may 

 be taught in parallel with applied science, as the grammar of the science, 

 but it will be found for tlie most part that the amount of pure science 

 that the average boy can understand will be included in the applied work. 



