902 Science-Teaching in the Schools. 
high school, more than justifies the attempt to teach some rudi- 
ments of physiology in the lower schools. 
Somewhat of physical geography will naturally be taught in the 
higher grades of the primary, and the lower grades of the gram- 
mar, schools, in connection with the general course in geography. 
It is very gratifying to observe the change in the school manuals of 
geography within the last few years, in respect of the greater prom- 
inence given to physical geography. 
In the higher grades of the grammar schools, it may reasonably 
be assumed that the reasoning faculties are more fully developed 
than in the lower grades, and observation and description of forms 
may rightly give place in large degree to studies in which the rela- 
tion of cause and effect is emphasized. This will be the most con- 
venient period for the introduction of exceedingly elementary 
courses in physics and chemistry. The pupils who will never enter 
the high school ought to get some rudimentary knowledge of these 
sciences; and a like rudimentary knowledge obtained in the gram- 
mar school will be of great advantage to the students in the high- 
school course. Of course, at this stage it will not be desirable or 
possible to penetrate into the mysteries of polarized light, to enu- 
merate the scores of rare elements, or to discuss the more intricate 
problems of the chemistry of the compounds of carbon. But 1t 
will be possible, in the later years of the course in the grammar 
school, to learn some of the more important facts and principles in 
regard to gravitation, the mechanical powers, the simpler and ‘more 
obvious phenomena of sound, light, heat, and electricity, the dis- 
tinction between elements and compounds, combustion, the chemis- 
try of air and water, and the properties of a very few of the most 
important elements and their compounds. 
When the student reaches the high school, he will be possessed 
of some knowledge of the forms of common animals and plants» 
the structure and functions of his own body, and the general prop- 
erties of matter. What is more important than any knowledge of 
nature which he may possess—he will have kept himself in sy mpa- 
thetic communion with nature; he will recognize nature as a WOT- 
thy object of study; he will know that he can learn something 
himself by the observation of nature, but that he has learned only 
an infinitesimal part of what nature has to teach. His conceptions 
will be crude, indefinite, inaccurate. His knowledge will require. 
