THE TEXT-BOOK AS AN ELEMENT OF SCIENCE TEACHING. 271 



make these principles understood. I only refer to those text-books prepared by 

 authors who know how to teach, and not to thd^se whose arrangement violates the 

 proper method of presentation. The mistake has been not in teaching the text- 

 book too much but in not teaching it enough — in not teaching it properly. In 

 the short time given to the study of each branch of science in our schools that 

 course should be pursued which will best prepare the student to continue the 

 studies thus begun or to engage in the activities of a business life. What will 

 best prepare the student to continue the study thus begun ? Some say take him 

 into the woods and let him "study nature for himself." Others will quote Prof. 

 Agassiz, who is reported to have said to some pupils who came to him for instruc- 

 tion : "I hope you have not brought any books, I don't want you to read." 



A child who "studies nature for himself," with no definite plan marked out 

 for him upon which he can concentrate his powers of thought, will see and notice 

 as many things of minor importance and of no relevancy to the subject at hand, 

 as things that will lead to unification and generalization. He perhaps collects 

 together a lot of trash, takes it home and calls it his cabinet. He reaps a harvest 

 of bugs and butterflies, and thrusts pins through their sensitive bodies in the name 

 of science. His mental impressions and conceptions will be made wholly on 

 appearances. His classifications will be made with reference more to appear- 

 ances then to organic structure and tissue, for it took ages of accumulated expe- 

 rience to reach such a method of classification; and our little "investigator" is 

 denied this because it is "second-handed" and may not be true. He perhaps 

 acquires a mighty zeal in his work. It is easy and a good deal like play to wan- 

 der in the woods and " collect specimens." He goes on till his collections swell 

 to formidable proportions; and if he does all this without the aid of a text-book 

 he will be as much of a scientist as Adam got to be. 



If there is anything for which we have reason to be thankful it is that we live 

 in an age that makes science possible ; but nothing like true science is possible 

 with a boy who pursues the above described course. I would not be understood 

 as depreciating the value of cabinets and historical collections. On the contrary, 

 my appreciation of them and their true place in teaching, I shall try to make ap- 

 parent in the course of this discussion. How then shall the pupil in the short 

 time allotted at school get the best possible start ? I shall precede the answer to 

 this question by a quotation from Wm. T. Harris, who is probably the profound- 

 est thinker in pedagogics in this country : "" The business of a school," says this 

 thinker, "is to enable the pupil to help himself to the accumulated experience of 

 the race as found in books." Why did he not say : as found in nature? Simply 

 because, although the principles of scientific truth have existed since man began 

 his existence here, it has taken the combined mental activity of the race thousands 

 of years to find them out. Whatever method then will best enable the pupil to 

 appropriate understandingly what is now the common property of mankind is the 

 true method. Some one has said "that the business of the teacher is to teach 

 the pupil how to read." When this is understood in its full meaning it contains 

 all there is in teaching. There are more pupils leave school who do not know 



