532 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OE SCIENCE. 



We are thus reminded that the subject matter of science, aside from the 

 transcendental concepts and cognitions which are always implied, consists of : 

 I. Facts of observation. 2. Principles generahzed from the facts. 3. Other 

 facts deduced from those principles. 



Here are three different kinds of knowable materials to be dealt with by the 

 teacher of science. As to the facts, it scarcely needs to be said that the most 

 effective method of imparting a knowledge of them to others is the observational. 

 If the facts of science are to be learned, the best way is to bring the facts and the 

 learner together. The method of the Kindergarten, the laboratory and the field is 

 truly the most efficient and the most agreeable. Too much can not be said of the 

 importance of giving full exercise to the percipient faculties, within all the range 

 where their activity is possible. But next, if direct observation is impossible, the 

 pictorial method is the best substitute, provided the pictures are intelligible and 

 correct. Poor pictures are misleading and a weariness. But if these are not 

 available in imparting a cognition of the facts, we must employ the descriptive 

 method. Here everything depends on the clearness of the describer's conception 

 of the thing, and the power of the learner to picture mentally the thing described. 

 These are powers of the imagination. Their exercise by the teacher gives vivid- 

 ness, reality and clearness to the fact set forth. Their exercise by the learner 

 gives vividness of conception which is the next thing to visual perception. In the 

 description of objects of natural history, some describers, with the object before 

 them, can not phrase a description out of which a picture could be formed. Some 

 who read the most accurate and vivid descriptions have no power to render them 

 in a clear mental picture. Hence the descriptive method as a dernier resort, is 

 neither to be employed undiscriminatingly, nor condemned unconditionally. 



Next, as to the generalizations, the ratiocinative process of acquisition should 

 be promoted in all cases ; but where the powers of the learner are incapable of 

 seizing the generalization, it must be enunciated dogmatically. The generalization 

 is the first attainable constituent of the science. It is of pre-eminent importance, 

 and is imagined by some to be the only genuine scientific material. It is well if 

 the pupil can view the facts under such a presentation as to draw the inference 

 for himself. Bat the inference must come into his possession, if only received on 

 the authority of the teacher. 



As to the deductive materials of science, they presume the existence of 

 generalized principles, and their acquisition by one of the two methods just indi- 

 cated. The deductive inferences from them should be drawn by the unaided 

 action of the learner's intelligence, where the process is not too recondite. More 

 frepuently, however, the learner can do no better than to listen to the detail of 

 inferences drawn by a teacher of adequate knowledge, reflection, and power of 

 statement. The teaching is either ratiocinative or dogmatic. 



The data and principles of science and of teaching, thus recalled to mind, 

 reveal, manifestly, a certain range of scientific knowledge which may be ap- 

 proached by the observational method, and should be so approached. The 

 acquisition of all which remains must be left to the action of the learner's ratiocin- 



