president's addeess. 17 



to get a pupil to observe, and to think about what he sees and 

 hears, is perhaps the most important and valuable point in any 

 form of teaching ; merely to know is not enough. 



In order to train the powers of observation and thinking, efforts 

 have been made of late years to so modify the methods of teaching 

 physical science, and especially chemistry, so as to place the pupil 

 in the position of a discoverer, e.g., Professor Armstrong's Heuristic 

 method. This method is very successful with small classes, or 

 where there are plenty of demonstrators. I do not agree with 

 those who think that Qualitative Analysis should not be taught 

 in schools, but I think that instruction in it should be mainly con- 

 fined to the principles involved ; these should be taught very 

 fully, and the experimental work should be so arranged as to 

 illustrate those principles ; practice in analysis can be taken up 

 later on. Some of the teaching in science which is now done at 

 the University ought to be done at school, and it is so done at 

 many schools at Home and on the Continent ; the student thereby 

 gains valuable time at the University for things that he cannot 

 do at school ; the replacement of some elementary science in the 

 matriculation examination would tend to bring this about ; it is, 

 perhaps, a platitude to remark that the University can exercise 

 great influence upon the school teaching, whereas the schools can 

 hardly affect the University curriculum ; but it is sometimes 

 beneficial to remind ourselves of well known things. 



It would probably be better to have a leaving examination 

 for schools instead of a matriculation examination at the Uni- 

 versity, and to include science in the former, but a leaving 

 examination would be much more difficult to institute than re- 

 introduce some science into the matriculation examination. It 

 may be thought by some that these references to science teaching 

 in schools would be better addressed to a different audience, but 

 I think that members of this Society having a knowledge of, or 

 taste for science, naturally wish their children to receive some 

 instruction in it, hence, in addressing you, I feel that I am speak- 

 ing to a sympathetic audience, the members of which can and 



B— May 1,1901. 



