234 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIX. No. 481 



I may add, of chemistry as well, were all analytical tables de- 

 stroyed. 



This brings us to the sub.iect of laboratory work, the sine qua 

 non of sciencific study. This is at the present day, so far ac- 

 knowledged that in none of our colleges, and few of our better 

 high schools and academies, would the instmctors think for an 

 instant of trying to teach certain sciences without the laboratory. 

 We may thank the chemist for the introduction of the laboratory 

 idea. But to-day there are few colleges, except the larger, and 

 still fewer of our academies, where we find physical or biological 

 laboratories; yet, even with the laboratory, we have by no means 

 reached the ideal in scientific instruction, save in a few institu- 

 tions. Take, for example, much of the laboratory instruction in 

 chemistry. With a book of directions before him, the student 

 performs certain experiments; with a set of tables, he goes 

 through the process of perhaps separating the metals, and may 

 become even a good analyst, without having profitted to any 

 considerable extent by his work, all being performed mechani- 

 cally, In the ph\sical and biological laboratories there is far less 

 danger of this misapplication of scientific study, and this largely 

 from the fact that laboratory work in these sciences is a more 

 recent idea and less systematized. In our modern education 

 there is a most pernicious tendency, well exemplified in botany 

 and chemistry, as we have seen, but found in other studies than 

 the sciences, toward machine instruction. Everything is most 

 .systematically arranged, and students, blight and dull, are all 

 dosed with so much per diem. The text-book is made every- 

 thing, and the teacher nothing; and, as a result, we are los- 

 ing our teachers. Their function seems to be no longer to 

 teach, but merely to see that the requu-ed dose is taken. The 

 scholar loses his individuality, and merely becomes like the Strass- 

 burg goose, cooped up and so much food forcei down its throat 

 so many times a day, the only demand being that on examination 

 day its liver shall have attained the regulation size. In otu- 

 larger colleges, where each instructor is confined to but one 

 branch, and is, as a rule, an expert in teaching that branch, 

 things are more as they should be ; the true aim of science study 

 is more nearly attained. But here these instructors are met with 

 the ditficulty that the student has so long been the victim of bad 

 methods that it is almost impossible to successfully introduce the 

 good ones. Then we must further even bear in mind that the 

 great mass of the youth of our land do not have the advantage of 

 college. It is but a small percentage who even enter the high 

 school. Has science nothing to do for those whose school-years 

 are few in number and who are to make the great bulk of our 

 citizens? I believe she has, and will try to point out, or at least 

 to hint at, what seem to me to be the methods by which science- 

 teaching can be made to accomplish its true mission. 



3. That which we must seek to do may be expressed very sim- 

 ply. We must seek to so teach science that the student, be he 

 man or woman, boy or girl, or even a little child, shall be led to 

 think about phenomena. If the great good to be attained by sci- 

 ence study is the development of the power of thought, we must 

 do all in our power to induce thought. The kindergarten, child's 

 play, as too many consider it, may teach us an important lesson. 

 It is play indeed, but the child is led to think about his play, and 

 the eff'ect of kindergarten instruction may be clearly seen in those 

 who have had the advantage of its training. It is surprising how 

 few even of our college students are capable of independent 

 thought. We see the lack of this thought in the sets of answers 

 to examination questions now and then published, generally with 

 the idea there is something humorous about them. They may 

 for the moment excite our laughter, but rather are they a cause 

 for pain, as bitter examples of the deficiency of our system of 

 education. I would have science-teaching begin with the first of 

 a child's education, or rather it should begin at home, long before 

 the child is thought old enough to study the alphabet. If the 

 child is taught to notice anything in nature, be it a stone or an 

 insect or a little rill of water, he will need but little encourage- 

 ment to ask questions about it, and, by a judicious directing, he 

 oan be led to do his own answering. I have seen a little girl, 

 hardly six years old and unable to read, reason out for herself the 

 general principles at the basis of evolution by merely calling her 



attention to a few little clumps of blue and white and yellow vio- 

 lets, growing in close proximity. In the lowest grades of our 

 schools the teacher should encourage children to collect all kinds 

 of natural objects, and those found in any locality will be am- 

 ply sufficient for science study. One of the ''plays" in the 

 kindergarten is for the children to plant different kinds of 

 seeds and watch their growth. Similarities and dissimilarities 

 attract attention. We all know the innate desire in every child to 

 dig up the recently-planted seed and see how it grows. The kin- 

 dergartner wisely utilizes this. 



In the few years of common school, the child will have perhaps 

 not the least systematic scientific knowledge, but he will have 

 learned to think about all that goes on around him, and then 

 when, at a later period, he takes up the sciences systematically, 

 he will find that he is already possessed of a great number of facts 

 which will almost arrange themselves, and that not merely in 

 an orderly manner but, what is far more important, intelligently. 

 In our common schools I would have science instruction given 

 from the lowest to the highest grade, and this wholly without the 

 aid of text-books. A short time should be taken every day, with 

 each class, for this purpose, the teacher endeavoring to interest 

 the class and draw them out on some natural object or phenome- 

 non. 



It matters little what the particular science chosen may be; if 

 there be one in which the teacher is especially interested, that is 

 the one to use; a handful of marbles, a base ball, or a bat, will 

 serve to interest the boys and instruct them on many a point in 

 mechanics; a few rubber bands stretched across a cigar-box, in 

 sound; a mirror, a burning-glass, and a prism, in light; zoology 

 affords, throughout its whole field, countless specimens for enter- 

 taining instruction to the young; they may in familiar examples, 

 and in specimens of their own collection, study the different de- 

 velopments and uses of homologous organs, as the arm of man, 

 leg of mammal, wing of bird, and fin of fish ; or the different 

 modifications of the same organ, as the comparison of the eyes of 

 vertebrates with those of insects and molluscs; or the different 

 organs used for the same purpose, as the organs of prehension 

 in man, monkey, elephant, parrot, snake, lobster, and insect; or, 

 on the other hand, they may find it more interesting to study from 

 a systematic standpoint, finding out for themselves the differences 

 between animals of different classes, as between herbivores and 

 carnivores, insect-eaters and rodents, insects and spiders, one- 

 shelled and two-shelled molluscs. It may in some localities be 

 possible to compare some of these modern forms, as snails, with 

 very similar fossil specimens near at hand ; and here we can call 

 geology and paleontology to our aid in work with children And 

 again, just to allude to one more science available for this work, 

 the kitchen closet, with the occasional aid of a few cents' worth 

 of some acid or the like at the drug store, will afford us most 

 ample opportunity of impressing the most important lessons of 

 chemistry; combustion, respiration and decay, pure air and venti- 

 lation, dryness as a disinfectant, fusion, solution and crystalliza- 

 tion, and a thousand similars, many of them of great practical 

 value in their applications, but far more useful as agencies for 

 thought development, come to our mind as possibilities in chem- 

 istry as a science for the young. I might take up each science in 

 its turn, for each can easily be made to serve its purpose, but 

 these examples will illustrate what can be done in any one of 

 them; not one thing mentioned but is within the reach of any 

 faithful common school teacher; but how long will it be before we 

 see any general materialization of such ideas? 



Thus far I have referred to scientific instruction in the lower 

 schools, which do not so directly concern the members of this asso- 

 ciation; the same principle, however, is applicable to the higher 

 schools, and we must not forget that the lower schools, which lie 

 at the basis of our civilization, are just what our higher institu- 

 tions make their teachers. When the high school and academy 

 are reached the possibilities in scientific instruction broaden vastly. 

 In the case of those who have had such elementary training as 

 described, the task is easy; but the problem is harder with others, 

 owing to the difficulty in teaching correct methods of study to 

 those who have for a period of years been drilled in bad ones. 

 Eight or ten years of learning by rcte are enough to unfit a child 



