SCIENCE-TEACHING IN OUR SCHOOLS. By: 
tray, those with a non-mathematical turn have seldom shone in 
physics. 
No branch of physical science can be taught well without the 
requisite appliances. Certainly in many cases these need not be 
of an expensive character, and the ingenious teacher can illus- 
trate many of the phenomena of heat, light, sound, and chemical 
action by means of apparatus and utensils in every day use. 
But to elucidate his whole subject, he must have certain special 
kinds of apparatus, and these are possessed by few of our schools. 
Chemistry in particular requires a somewhat elaborate stock, 
both of material and apparatus, and without these it is better 
policy on the part of teachers to take up some other subject 
which would more easily be illustrated. 
Electricity (and magnetism) also require apparatus, and that 
of a somewhat expensive kind. My own opinion, which will not 
perhaps meet with much favour from physicists, is that this 
science is best left alone until the principles of some of the allied 
sciences are mastered. Its phenomena are not readily presented 
to the mind in a thinkable form, and, as a matter of fact, a very 
considerable familiarity with these phenomena may be acquired 
without any corresponding knowledge of the principles under- 
lying them. While both things are important, the knowledge 
of principles is much more so, from an educational point of view, 
than the practical acquaintance is. 
Again in this connection I am tempted to review the position 
assigned to the physical sciences in the~ University Junior 
Scholarship examination. In the list of subjects scheduled, in- 
organic chemistry, sound and light, heat, electricity, and elemen- 
tary biology,* are all placed in the same standard as far as values 
are concerned, 500 marks being assigned to each. Those who 
are practically acquainted with, and have taught these subjects, 
know that to attain equal results in each, very different amounts 
of teaching and of study are required. No doubt examination 
papers could be set so as to reduce all to an equal value, but in 
practice this is rarely done. It requires a far more considerable 
amount of study to be able to answer questions over the wide 
fields of chemistry and of biology than it does over the more 
limited and definite subjects of heat, light, sound, and electricity. 
I can point to more than one instance of pupils who have been 
engaged for two years or more on the study of one of the wider 
subjects, but who, six months before their going up for examina- 
tion, dreading that they could not compass all the field, have 
thrown it up, taken up one of the four above-mentioned (which 
was previously unknown to them), and with that brief “cram” 
out of a text-book, have passed successfully. This is certainly 
not one of the results which the Senate of the University desire, 
and though such work under the best devised scheme of ex- 
amination will always be more or less possible, still it is neces- 
* T leave out of account the ‘‘ Elementary Mechanics of Solids and Fluids,” as 
I have no practical acquaintance—as a teacher—with the subject. 
