L— EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 211 



failure and inefficiency in these trades and professions is due to an 

 inability to apply scientific method to thought. 



Evidence of Progress. — What evidence have we that forty years of science 

 teaching have produced the results for which we have hoped and striven ? 

 Notwithstanding the fact that seven million of our population will invest 

 hard-earned half-sovereigns in a sweepstake upon a horse race in which 

 ' the unexpected always happens,' I believe there are many signs of 

 improvement in general intelligence and vocational keenness. Boys, 

 and especially girls, are entering employments and facing with success 

 responsibilities unthinkable at their ages in Victorian days. The soundest 

 critics of the schoolmaster and his work are the pupils he has taught. 

 Although a few boys, and more girls, say they hated science at school, 

 the great majority in after life regard the subject with profound respect 

 and regret the lack of fuller opportunity for its study. 



Admittedly the magnitude of science teaching in the schools is con- 

 siderable ; how much is emerging in useful form .'' Are we satisfied with 

 the understanding of the commonest occurrences displayed by the man 

 in the street and the woman in her home ? Is not their childlike simplicity 

 about such matters rather disturbing } To what percentage do such 

 ideas as the burning of a fire, the nutrition of the body or the growth of 

 a plant mean anything ? 



Among the general practitioners in the scientific occupations mentioned 

 above do we not often detect lacuna of fundamental knowledge that 

 would disgrace the average schoolboy ? We have yet to give the lie to 

 Mr. Baldwin's recent epigram that ' the only permanent thing in life is 

 human stupidity.' 



The schoolmaster of grammarian bent still looks askance at our efforts ; 

 he cannot visualise our wider and more distant objective . With the ends he 

 has in view we agree, but we cannot regard them as all-sufficient, nor con- 

 sider his methods the most direct for the achievement of his own purposes. 

 But the old antagonism between traditional and modern studies is break- 

 ing down. In his presidential address to the Science Masters' Associa- 

 tion this year. Dr. Cyril Norwood, Headmaster of Harrow, stated the case 

 for science in the schools with cogency and sincerity ; his skilful diagnosis 

 of the demands that life makes upon the product of our schools shows that 

 a classical education is no barrier to scientific and courageous thinking. 



The provision for science instruction in secondary and other schools 

 for pupils over fourteen years of age appears to be fairly general and 

 satisfactory. 



Science in the Elementary School. — In the elementary schools little sub- 

 stantial progress has been made ; here more than elsewhere the child is 

 dependent upon the school for his educational equipment for life ; if he 

 does not get some introduction to natural knowledge at school, he will find 

 few opportunities later. Sound science teaching must not remain the 

 prerogative of the child over fourteen years of age. In recent years I 

 have had the opportunity, as an examiner, of assessing the value of the 

 science instruction given in the elementary schools of most of the larger 

 centres of population in the United Kingdom. Although I was dealing 

 probably with selected cases the results were wholly depressing, and 



