SCIENCE TEACHING. 303 



was Bacon who advanced and stoutly defended the view that science teach- 

 ing in our schools should be made intuitional, living and practical. 



The pupil commences mechanics. lie has studied no books upon the 

 subject. He places the load at one end of his lever — a bar of iron, or a 

 piece of board — near which is the support or fulcrum, and his hand press- 

 ing downward at the other end; he removes the support now toward the 

 power and now toward the load, measuring the distances, performing calcu- 

 lations and determining results — knowledge in its true and only sense is ac- 

 quired, No more interesting sight can be witnessed than a class of young 

 ladies and gentlemen exercising the mental powers. By more exact methods 

 they now proceed to ascertain the well known law of the lever. How ? 

 Not by such mystical conceptions advanced by Aristotle, that such a motion 

 of the lever is in accordance with nature, and such a motion is contrary to 

 nature, but by the method of Archimedes who first gave us the law — by ab- 

 solute experiment. Let us note that in the study of the lever the senses of 

 the pupils, the faculties of mind have been exercised and disciplined by 

 bringing them into direct contact with the objects of knowledge, instead of 

 what some one says about them. The observer's powers have been em- 

 ployed, the habit of attention gained and the necessity of exactness felt. He 

 has applied his power of comparison, generalizations have followed and the 

 understanding has been enlarged. He has seen the problem and felt the ob- 

 stacles, and strengthened by the conquest and cheered by his successes, he 

 is fresh for another subject. 



Now to the teacher's work. What has he done? Exhibited the experi- 

 ments to his class? No. Exercised his own faculties instead of his j^upils ? 

 No. Has he imparted any information? No. Crammed his pupils ? No. 

 Then what has he done ? He has most marvellously kept his mouth shut. 

 I am daily more convinced that the work of the teacher is, primarily, not to 

 impart knowledge but to abstain from imparting knowledge. Stated differ- 

 ently, successful teaching is that kind of direction which enables the pupil 

 to acquire for himself. But life is short, says one, and the much in the 

 little which it is possible to learn, requires time. Shall the pupil be aban- 

 doned to aimless and uncertain trial, to the fate of fortune, to the haphaz- 

 ard successes of the laboratory for the acquisition of knowledge ? Kepler 

 wrought thirty years, successively testing nineteen different hypotheses,- 

 before he discovered the form of the planetary orbits, while the world has 

 been many thousand years in learning the nature of combustion. It is here 

 that the directing power of the teacher avails in placing the pupil in the 

 way that he may acquire for himself. 



I am satisfied that the most of the work of pupils should consist of an 

 exercise of faculties, instead of memorizing the finished knowledge of those 

 who have obtained it by such exercise ; that one of the principal aims should 

 be the acquisition of method ; that these mental processes should be concen- 

 trated upon the objects which alone develop them; that a knowledge of the 

 object should precede a knowledge of its name ; that a knowledge of the 



