534 - KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



might be a feeling of interest and delight. The only rational procedure with the 

 child, in the study of rudimentary geology, for instance, is, therefore, to take 

 him into the field and permit his faculties of observation and thought to lead 

 him, by the natural processes of investigation and discovery, to the apprehen- 

 sion of those principles which constitute the inductive department of the science. 

 His own faculties then are active, and to some extent, in all cases, the principles 

 reached are principles discovered ; the child feels a consciousness of success — a 

 pride in it, an exhilaration over it, and the whole exercise is a delight. 



If the case be that of a person entering on a thorough course of scientific 

 study, then equally, an examination of the facts which constitute the data of the 

 science is the first thing in natural order. This is the nature of the study in an 

 elementary course, whether the pupil be a child in the grammar school or a 

 senior in college. But the style of the presentation will vary with the maturity 

 of the learner, and so will the prompting needed in drawing the appropriate les- 

 sons from the facts. It is a needlessly prosaic, heavy and deadening process to 

 start a course in science with the conning and memorizing of abstract general 

 statements which rest on no evidence visible to the learner, and sustain no recog- 

 nized relation to any body of knowledge which interests and inspires, and lifts 

 up the mind. With all the inspiration which belongs to science, it is easy to 

 give it a cold and soporific presentation to the beginner. The order of ideas in 

 the historic development of a science is nature's order in the development of the 

 same ideas in the individual mind. What is most natural is most pleasant and 

 most profitable. 



As the study of the science proceeds, the student's mind is prepared for the 

 reception of the higher generalizations, and the far-reaching results of deductive 

 reasoning. The skillful teacher will cause the data to pass before the learner's 

 mind in such order as to prompt the mind, through its own energy, to reach 

 these inferences as original discoveries. That is the best teaching, and those are 

 the best text books, which secure the most of this productive spontaneity. But, as 

 before stated, much must always be enunciated by authority. Especially, while 

 the person continues in the relation of pupil rather than independent investiga- 

 tor, will it remain appropriate and best for the teacher in his own language and 

 way, to enlarge upon the far-reaching consequences of those modes of being and 

 action which are expressed in the higher generalizations of science. To trace 

 those consequences leads the learner's thoughts and imagination into realms so 

 remote from present experience that novelty and wonder lend new incentives to 

 attention and add exalted interest to the conceptions of the science. These 

 higher generalizations and loftier deductions are a grand sequel to the earlier 

 details of facts and the later formulation of doctrines, and they may advantage- 

 ously be reserved for formal lecture presentation. 



There are still other circumstances in which every teacher of science is liable 

 to find himself sometimes placed. Multitudes of persons who cannot or will not 

 pursue any thorough course of scientific study, still desire a knowledge of the 

 ^rand results of science. This, indeed, is all which the world at large cares for. 



