May 22, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



283 



mean to undervalue book-learning; . . . but the great use 

 of a public school education to you is, not so much to teach 

 you things as to teach you how to learn. . . . And what 

 does the art of learning consist in ? First and foremost in 

 the art of observing; that is, the boy who uses his eyes best 

 on his books, and observes the words and letters of his lesson 

 most accurately and carefully, that is the boy who learns 

 Tiis lesson best, I presume. . . . Therefore I say that every- 

 thing which helps a boy's powers of observation helps his 

 power of learning; and I know from experience that noth- 

 ing helps that so much as the study of the world about 

 you." 



Literary and mathematical studies are not a sufficient 

 preparation in the great majority of cases for the work of 

 the world: they develop introspective habit too exclusively. 

 In future, boys and girls generally must not be confined to 

 desk studies; they must not only learn a good deal about 

 things, they must also be taught how to do things, and to 

 this end must learn how others before them have done things 

 by actually repeating — not by merely reading about — what 

 others have done. We ask, in fact, that the use of eyes and 

 hands in unravelling the meaning of the wondrous changes 

 which are going on around us in the world of nature shall 

 be taught systematically in schools generally; that is to say, 

 that the endeavor shall be made to inculcate the habits of 

 observing accurately, of experimenting exactly, of observing 

 and experimenting with a clearly defined and logical pur- 

 pose, and of logical reasoning from observation and the re- 

 sults of experimental inquiry. Scientific habits and method 

 must be universally taught. We ask to be at once admitted 

 to equal rights with the three E's: it is no question of an 

 alternative subject. This cannot be too clearly stated, and 

 the battle must be fought out on this issue within the next 

 few years. 



The importance of entering on the right course when the 

 time comes that this claim is admitted — as it inevitably must 

 be when the general public and those who direct our edu- 

 cational system realize its meaning — cannot be exaggerated. 

 The use of eyes and hands — scientific method — cannot be 

 taught by means of the blackboard and chalk, or even by 

 experimental lectures and demonstrations alone: individual 

 -eyes and hands must be actually and persistently practised, 

 and from the very earliest period in the school career. Such 

 studies cannot be postponed until the technical college or 

 university is reached : the faculties which can there receive 

 their highest development must not have been allowed to 

 atrophy through neglect during the years spent at school. 

 This is a point of fundamental importance. At school the 

 habit is acquired of learning lessons, of learning things Irom 

 books; and after a time it is an easy operation to a boy or 

 girl of fair mental capacity, given the necessary books, to 

 learn what is known about a particular subject. One out- 

 come of this, in my experience, particularly in the case of 

 the more capable student, is the confusion of shadow with 

 substance. "Why should I trouble to make all these ex- 

 periments which take up so much time, which require so 

 much care, and which yield a result so small in proportion 

 to the labor expended, when I can gain the information by 

 reading a page or so in such and such a text-book ? " is the 

 question I have often known put by highly capable students. 

 They fail to realize the object in view, — that they are study- 

 ing method; that their object should be to learn how to make 

 use of text-book information by studying how such informa- 

 tion has been gained ; and to prepare themselves for the time 

 when they will have exhausted the information at theii' dis- 



posal, and are unprovided with a text-book, when they will 

 have to help themselves. I am satisfied that the one remedy 

 for this acquired disease is to commence experimental studies 

 at the very earliest possible moment, so that children may 

 from the outset learn to acquire knowledge by their own 

 efforts; to extend infantile practice — for it is admitted that 

 the infant learns much by experimenting — and the kinder- 

 garten system into the school, so that experimenting and ob 

 serving become habits. The vast majority of young children 

 naturally like such work, and it is to be feared that our sys- 

 tem of education is mainly responsible for the decay of the 

 taste with advancing years. 



No doubt, just as literary excellence may be attained 

 through the agency of one or other of several languages, 

 scientific method may be inculcated in a variety of ways; 

 and we may expect that, looking at the problem from various 

 points of view, teachers will ere long devise courses suited to 

 the requirements of scholars of different types. My views 

 have been somewhat fully set forth in the "Reports to the 

 British Association of the Committee on the Present Methods 

 of Teaching Chemistry " (B. A. Report, 1888, 1889, 1890) ; 

 but it is perhaps not superfluous to mention that the draft 

 schemes which I have prepared are but outlines for the 

 consideration of the competent teacher. On the present oc- 

 casion, I may fitly bring my address to a conclusion by call- 

 ing attention to a few simple experiments in illustration of 

 the method of teaching of which I am an advocate. [The 

 remaining portion of the address was illustrated with experi- 

 ments.] 



In the first place, I hold that, in order that children may 

 acquire scientific habits, they should be led to look around 

 them and take note of the various objects which present 

 themselves to view. Lists of such objects having been pre- 

 pared, their several uses having been as far as possible real- 

 ized, and much simple information as to their origin, etc., 

 having been imparted by reading lessons and practical de- 

 monstrations, a stage will be reached at which the children 

 can themselves begin to determine the properties of common 

 objects, generally by measurement. The measurement les- 

 sons in the first instance may be of the simplest kind. Much 

 may be done with the aid of a boxwood scale divided into 

 tenths of an inch on the one edge, and into millimetres on 

 the other. With the aid of such a scale, children may learn 

 to measure accurately, and may be taught the use of decimals 

 and the relation between the English and the metric system. 

 Obviously such work might well form part of the arithmetic 

 lesson, and there can be no doubt that "practical arithmetic " 

 lessons would often be far more easily mastered and be more 

 interesting than are the dry problems of the books. It is 

 easy also to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by 

 these lessons to impress useful information of quite another 

 character by such an exercise as the following, for example, 

 which I suggest, however, merely by way of illustration, 

 and not as in any sense novel: "Third-class passengers 

 usually pay fare at the rate of one penny per mQe. Ascer- 

 tain from a railway timetable (Bradshaw) the fares to a 

 number of the chief towns in England, Wales, and Scotland 

 from London, and then calculate the distances in miles and 

 kilometres (1 kilometre is equal to 1.000 metres)." 



In the next place, the measiu-ement lessons may take the 

 form of lessons in weighing. I am of opinion that the dis- 

 ciplinary effect of teaching children to weigh exactly cannot 

 be overestimated. It matters little what is weighed, pro- 

 vided that the weighing be done as accurately as the balance 

 at disposal permits. Professor Worthington, in his invalua- 



