SCIENCE TEACHING. 569 
required. In the first place, it will be necessary that the students 
come to them better prepared than they are at present; as a rule 
they are so ill-prepared that it is very difficult, if not impossible, in 
the time at disposal to give such preliminary instruction as is 
indispensable before higher work can be attempted. Their mathe- 
matical knowledge is so ill-digested that it is more often than not 
necessary to begin by teaching simple proportion, and they look 
aghast at a logarithm table. They cannot draw; so far have we 
advanced in our civilisation that the subject is more often than not an 
“extra” in our schools. They understand a little French; but 
German, which may almost be called the language of modern science, 
is indeed an unknown tongue tothem. I do not complain of their 
want of knowledge of science subjects, but of the unscientific manner 
in which they have been trained at school, and especially of the 
manner in which their intellectual faculties have become deadened 
from want of exercise, instead of developed and sharpened. ‘Too 
many have never acquired the habit of working steadily and seriously; 
they have not learnt to appreciate the holiness of work,* so that they 
render the office of teacher akin to that of slave-driver instead of to 
that of friend. What is perhaps worst is their marked inability, 
often amounting to downright refusal, cither to take proper notice of 
what happens in an experiment or to draw any logical conclusion 
from an observation. Man is said to be a reasoning being, but my 
experience as an examiner and teacher would lead me to believe that 
this fact is altogether lost sight of by the average schoolmaster, who 
appears to confine himself almost exclusively to the teaching of hard 
dry facts, and makes no attempt to cultivate those very faculties 
which are supposed to characterise the human race; or he is so ill- 
prepared for his work that he fails to understand his duty. These 
are harsh words, but the evil is of such magnitude that it cannot be 
too plainly stated; those who, like myself, are brought full face to it 
fail in their duty if, when opportunity occurs, they do not take 
occasion to call attention to its existence. 
“Probably the unly remedy—certainly the most effectual, and 
that which can be most easily applied—is the introduction of a rational 
system of practical science teaching into all our schools, whatever their 
grade; one effect would be that all the school subjects, would of necessity 
soon be taught in a more scientific manner. I am not one of those 
~ who would eschew the teaching of classics, and I do not wish to see 
science teaching introduced into schools generally, in order that the 
students who come to me may already have gained some knowledge 
of science: under existing circumstances I prefer that they shall not; 
but I desire its introduction because the faculty of observing and of 
reasoning from observation, and also from experiment, is most readily 
developed by the study of experimental science; this faculty, which is 
of such enormous practical value throughout life, being, I believe—as. 
I have said elsewhere—left uncultivated after the most careful mathe- 
matical and literary training. Noone has stated this more clearly 
than Charles Kingsley. We are told that, speaking to the boys at 
* In my experience, the behaviour of ordinary day male students is, in this respect, 
particularly striking in comparison with that of female and evening students: the 
evening students, who come with a desire to learn, and the female students are 
invariably most attentive, and make the fullest use of the opportunities afforded them. 
