SCIENCE-TEACHING IN OUR SCHOOLS. 315 
“Natural and Physical Sciences:—Any two of the follow- 
| ing— 
(2) Inorganic Chemistry. 
(2) Electricity. 
(c) Sound and Light. 
(dq) Heat. 
(e) Elementary Mechanics of Solids and Fluids. 
(f) Elementary Biology, (viz.) The structure and life-history 
of such typical unicellular organisms as Bacterium, 
Saccharomyces, Protococcus, or Closterium and 
Ameceba ; and of such multicellular organisms as 
Penicillium, Mucor or Agaricus, Spirogyra, or any 
other multicellular Alga, Nitella and Hydra, or any 
other hydroid polyp; and the anatomy, physiology, 
and histology of a flowering plant and of a cray-fish.” 
I cannot but think that this last selection is a mistake, and 
that it would be far better to expunge it from the catalogue, and 
put botany and zoology in its place, as was formerly done, and 
as is still done in the matriculation examination. My reasons 
for objecting to elementary biology are reasons of expediency, 
and will, I consider, be thought sufficiently weighty by any one 
who has had experience in teaching scholars at the age (and in 
the numbers) at which we have to deal with them in secondary 
schools. The subject, taught on the Huxleyan plan, is eminently 
suitable for students who have arrived at a sufficiently mature 
age to be attending University, but is not particularly so for 
school boys and girls. 
In the first place the five typical unicellular organisms named 
are microscopic structures, requiring for their mere identification 
lenses of high power and good definition, while the study of their 
life-histories necessitates the perfection of microscopic manipula- 
tion. This alone constitutes an objection to their employment 
as suitable objects for beginners. Boys and girls are not blessed 
with an unlimited stock of patience, a virtue which commonly 
developes later on in life, and if after long looking they fail to 
see points which appear to the teacher—with his long practice— 
quite clear, they are apt to be repelled from, rather than be at- 
tracted to, the subject. Any one who has worked out the his- 
tory of a unicellular organism will bear me out in saying that 
without long preliminary training in the use of the microscope 
and in histological methods, little or no result will accrue from 
personal observation. It takes long practice even to know what 
one is looking at under a microscope, and the time to acquire 
this practice cannot be obtained in a class of any size, unless 
each pupil is furnished with an instrument. As yet, we area 
long way from such a desirable state of affairs in our New Zea- 
land schools, and we should not have conditions imposed on 
teachers which they cannot satisfy. As the matter now stands, 
the inclusion of such subjects in our examinations appears to me 
to defeat one of the objects of scientific instruction. The main 
