634 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 304. 



Professor H. E. Armstrong, in a paper 

 read at a conference at the Health Exhibi- 

 tion five years before this, had foreshadowed 

 much that was in this Report. He also drew 

 up a detailed scheme for ' a course of ele- 

 mentary instruction in physical science,' 

 which was includedintheEeport of the Com- 

 mittee, and it cannot be doubted that this 

 scheme and the labors of the Committee 

 have had a very marked influence on the 

 development of the teaching of practical 

 chemistry in schools. That this influence 

 has been great will be admitted when it 

 is understood that schemes based on the 

 recommendation of the Committee are now 

 included in the codes for both Elementary 

 Day Schools and Evening Continuation 

 Schools. The recent syllabuses for elemen- 

 tary and advanced courses issued by the In- 

 corporated Association of Headmasters and 

 by the Oxford and Cambridge local board 

 and others are evidently directly inspired 

 by the ideas set forth by the Comm ittee. 



The department of Science and Art has 

 also adopted some of the suggestions of the 

 Committee, and a revised syllabus was is- 

 sued by the Department in 1895, in which 

 qualitative analysis is replaced by quanti- 

 tative experiments of a simple form, and 

 by other exercises so framed ' as to prevent 

 answers being given by students who have 

 obtained their information from books or 

 oral instruction.' This was a very consid- 

 erable advance, but it niust be admitted 

 that there is nothing in the syllabus which 

 encourages, or even suggests, placing the 

 learners in the attitude of discoverers, and 

 this, in the opinion of the Committee of 

 this Association, is vital if the teaching is 

 to have educational value. 



Many criticisms have been passed upon 

 the 1889 Report. It has been said that life 

 is much too short to allow of each individ- 

 ual advancing from the known to the un- 

 known, according to scientific methods, and 

 that even were this not so too severe a tax 



is made upon the powers of boys and girls. 

 In answer to the second point it will be 

 conceded that while it is doubtless futile to 

 try to teach chemistry to young childi-en, 

 on the other hand experience has abun- 

 dantly shown that the average schoolboy of 

 fourteen or fifteen can, with much success, 

 investigate such problems as were studied 

 in the researches of Black and Scheele, of 

 Priestley and Cavendish and Lavoisier, and 

 it is quite remarkable with what interest 

 such young students carry out this class of 

 work. 



It may be well to quote the words which 

 Sir Michael Foster used in this connection 

 in his admirable presidential address to this 

 Association in 1899. He said : " The learner 

 may be led to old truths, even the oldest, 

 in more ways than one. He may be brought 

 abruptly to a truth in its finished form, 

 coming straight to it like a thief climbing 

 over a wall ; and the hurry and press of 

 modern life tempt many to adopt this 

 quicker way. Or he may be more slowly 

 guided along the path by which the truth 

 was reached by him who first laid hold of 

 it. It is by this latter way of learning the 

 truth, and by this alone, that the learner 

 may hope to catch something at least of the 

 spirit of the scientific inquirer." 



I believe that in the determination of a 

 suitable school course in experimental sci- 

 ence this principle of historical develop- 

 ment is a very valuable guide, although it 

 is not laid down in the 1889 Report of the 

 British Association. 



The application of this principle will lead 

 to the study of the solvent action of water, 

 of crystallization, and of the separation of 

 mixtures, of solids before the investigation 

 of the composition of water, and also be- 

 fore the investigation of the phenomena of 

 combustion. It will lead to the investiga- 

 tion of hydrochloric acid before chlorine, 

 and especially to the postponement of 

 atomic and molecular theories, chemical 



