368 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



and the vast importance of the subject which forbids cessation, or wavering, of 

 effort, even in the face of conscious defeat, I am constrained to reiterate some 

 statements often made and to reinforce them with copious quotations from others 

 who know from experience whereof they affirm, and whose views are worthy of 

 consideration and acceptance. 



While faith, in many things, is a most commendable and essential virtue, un- 

 questioning faith in the statements made by authors of text-books and lectures in 

 regard to phenomena of nature has in it more of weakness and servitude than of 

 wisdom. Prof. Huxley says in regard to physical science : "Mere text-book 

 work is a sham and a delusion." The committee*, on science teaching, of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science, after quoting a remark 

 of Huxley, that he " would not raise a finger to introduce more book-work into 

 every art curriculum in the country," say ; " We concur in this view as applied 

 to the present science teaching in our public schools. We would not raise a 

 finger to extend it." The advancement of science is so rapid that text-books, 

 even the best, as Prof. Agassiz has said, "are already antiquated by the time 

 they leave the press." Agassiz further says; "When we study books we are 

 prone to remove away from the thing we study. A student of nature should, 

 therefore, be trained at once in the difficult art of reading for himself in the great 

 book of nature." He was accustomed to say to his pupils: " I hope you have 

 brought no books, for I don't want you to read." Dr. Jas. LeConte, of the 

 State University of California, says: "While a lecturer in the class-room or on 

 the public platform may teach correct science as accepted at the time, his field is 

 not so extended and his time so limited that he cannot keep pace with it, and thus 

 be compelled unwittingly to teach error, as is usually the case — he cannot bring 

 it to the full comprehension of his hearers by mere word of mouth." Dr. Whew- 

 ell says : " The knowledge of which I speak must be a knowledge of things, and 

 not merely the names of things ; an acquaintance with the operations and products 

 of nature, and not what has been said of them." Quoit asserts that "the bane 

 of our school work is the confounding of knowledge with memorizing " " Cram 

 has been defined by an English lexicographer, as a species of intellectual feeding 

 which is neither preceded by appetite nor followed by digestion." "The value 

 of educational systems consists simply in what they do to incite the pupil to help 

 himself. Mechanical school-work can give instruction, but it cannot develop 

 faculty because this depends upon self-exertion. Science, if rightly pursued, is 

 the most valuable school of self-instruction." Committee of A. A. A. S. "Ju- 

 dicious oral assistance, as in the physical, chemical, or natural history laboratory, 

 given by a competent master to a pupil at work, is invaluable for stimulus and 

 guidance; but the aid must be discreet and the skillful teacher will not talk too 

 much. But where it is all talk and no work, and text-books are filtered through 

 the very imperfect medium of the ordinary teacher's mind, and the pupil has 

 nothing to do but to be instructed, every sound principle of education is out- 



=•■ This committee consists of E. L. Youmans, A. R. Grote, J, W, Powell, N. S. Sh.iler and J. S, Newberry. 



