434 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1451 



educational science. When instruction in sci- 

 ence was fii'st introduced into schools its char- 

 acter was determined by insight and conviction 

 rather than by mental needs or interests ; so 

 later, when practical work came to be regarded 

 as an essential part of such instruction, its 

 nature and scope represented what certain 

 authorities believed pupils should do, instead 

 of what they were capable of doing with intel- 

 ligence and purpose. Practical chemistry be- 

 came drill in the test-tubing operations of 

 qualitative analysis, and the result was so un- 

 satisfactory from the points of view of both 

 science and education that when Professor 

 Armstrong put forward a scheme of instruction 

 devised by him, in which intelligent experi- 

 mentation took the place of routine exercises, 

 acknowledgment of its superior educational 

 value could not be withheld, and for thirty 

 years its principles have influenced the greater 

 part of the science teaching in our schools. 



In its aims the "heuristic" methods of study- 

 ing science energetically advocated by Pro- 

 fessor Armstrong were much the same as those 

 associated with the names of other educational 

 reformers. Education in every age tends to a 

 condition of scholasticism, and practical science 

 teaching is no exception to this general rule, its 

 trend being towards ritual, after which a revolt 

 follows in the natural order of events. 

 Comenius, with his insistence upon sense per- 

 ception as the foundation of early training — 

 "Leave nothing," he said, "until it has been 

 impressed by means of the ear, the eye, the 

 tongue, the hand." John Dury among the 

 Commonwealth writers who urged that pupils 

 should be guided to observe all things and 

 reflect upon them; Locke, with his use of sci- 

 ences not to bring about "a variety and stock 

 of knowledge, but a variety and freedom of 

 thinking"; and Rousseau who would "measure, 

 reason, weigh, compare," not in order to teach 

 particular sciences, but to develop methods of 

 learning them — all these WBre in different de- 

 grees apostles of the same gospel of education 

 according to Nature, and the development of a 

 scientific habit of mind as the intention of 

 instruction. What Rousseau persistently urged 

 in this direction was clearly formulated by 

 Spencer in the words, "Children should be led 



to make their own investigations, and to draw 

 their own inferences. They should be told as 

 little as possible, and induced to discover as 

 much as possible" — principles which cover all 

 that is implied in what has since been termed 

 "heuristic" teaching. 



Professor Armstrong's particular contribu- 

 tion to educational science consisted in the pro- 

 duction of detailed schemes of work in which 

 these principles were put into practice. Ideas 

 are relatively cheap, and it needs a master 

 mind to make a coherent story or useful struc- 

 ture from them. This was done in 'the courses 

 in chemistry outlined in reports presented to 

 the British Association in 1889 and 1890, and 

 the effect was a complete change in the methods 

 of teaching that subject. "The great mistake," 

 said Professor Armstrong, "that has been made 

 hitherto is that of attempting to teach the ele- 

 ments of this or that special branch of science ; 

 what we should seek to do is to impart the ele- 

 ments of scientific method and inculcate wis- 

 dom, so choosing the material studied as to 

 develop an intelligent appreciation of what is 

 going on in the world." One feature of heuris- 

 tic instruction emphasized by its modern advo- 

 cate, but often neglected, is that which it pre- 

 sents to the teaching of English. Accounts of 

 experiments had to be written out in literary 

 form describing the purpose of the inquiry and 

 the bearing of the results upon the questions 

 raised, and wide reading of original works was 

 encouraged. A few years ago English compo- 

 sition was regarded as a thing apart from 

 written work in science, but this should not be 

 so, and most teachers would now agree with 

 the view expressed by Sir J. J. Thomson's com- 

 mittee on the position of natural science in the 

 educational system of Great Britain that "All 

 through the science course the greatest oare 

 should be taken to insist on the accurate use of 

 the English language, and the longer the time 

 given to science the greater becomes the 

 responsibility of the teacher in this matter. . . . 

 The conventional jargon of laboratories, which 

 is far too common in much that is written on 

 pure and applied science, is quite out of place 

 in schools." 



When heuristic methods are followed in the 

 spirit in which they were conceived, namely, 



