i869 PHYSIOGRAPHY 331 



In this and other educational addresses, he had sug- 

 gested that one of the best ways of imparting to children a 

 preliminary knowledge of the phenomena of nature would 

 be a course of what the Germans call " Erdkunde," or gen- 

 eral information about the world we live in. It should 

 reach from our simplest everyday observations to wide gen- 

 eralisations of physical science ; and should supply a back- 

 ground for the study of history. To this he gave the name 

 " Physiography," a name which he believed to be original, 

 until in 1877 his attention was called to the fact that a 

 Physiographic had been published in Paris thirty years 

 before. 



The idea was no new one with him. Part of his pre- 

 liminary lectures at the School of Mines had been devoted 

 to something of the kind for the last dozen years ; he had 

 served on the Committee of the British Association, ap- 

 pointed in 1866 as the result of a paper by the present Dean 

 Farrar, then a Harrow master, " On the Teaching of Science 

 in the Public Schools," * to report upon the whole question. 

 Moreover, in consultation with Dr. Tyndall, he had drawn 

 up a scheme in the winter 1868-69, for the science teaching 

 in the International College, on the Council of which they 

 both were. 



Seven yearly grades were arranged in this scheme, pro- 

 ceeding from the simplest account of the phenomena of 

 nature taught chiefly by object lessons, largely through the 

 elements of Physics and Botany, Chemistry and Human 

 Physiology^all illustrated with practical demonstrations — 

 to more advanced work in these subjects, as well as in 

 Social Science, which embraced not only the theory of 

 commerce and government, but the Natural History of Man 

 up to the point at which Ethnology and Archaeology touch 

 history. 



It is interesting to note that the framers of this report 

 thought it necessary to point out that one master could not 

 teach all these subjects. 



In the three later stages the boys might follow alter- 



* See p. 2g8. 



