SCIENCE-TEACHING IN SCHOOLS. 387 
his classical and historical studies, supplemented by the copious 
oral tradition of the playground. 
The impulse which sets a-going any reform in teaching 
generally comes from without; but the actual systematising of a 
new subject must be done by schoolmasters themselves, since 
the best considered scheme of an outsider cannot fail to present 
many practical difficulties. What is wanted is not that pupils 
should get a smattering of all sorts of science subjects—a return 
to classics pure and simple would be better than that—but that 
instruction in natural science should run alongside instruction 
in mathematics and language through the whole of the school 
career. The demand for science teaching is daily increasing, 
and there are two things to be done to meet it—first of all to 
organise the instruction in such a way as to give the maximum 
of sound scientific culture ; and secondly, to be prepared to fight 
to the death against the damnable heresy that science is to be 
taught on mere “useful knowledge” grounds. If the ideal to be 
obtained is that a man should have at his fingers’ ends all those 
scraps of miscellaneous information which it is so satisfactory to 
possess for conversational and other purposes, the best thing we 
can do is to return to Mangnall’s “Questions” and Brown’s 
“Guide to Science ;” but at any rate let us not dignify by the 
name of science-teaching anything so consummately unscientific. 
Rone. ON RECENT, ADDITIONS TO THE NEW 
ABWILAND BLORA.* 
-_—-< ----- 
BY, THOMAS, KIRK,” F.LS: 
—_-> 
Capsella procumbens, Fries (Hutchinsia procumbens, Hook, f. FI. 
Tasm.).—I have received specimens of this plant from Mr. D. 
Petrie, who collected them at Cape Whybrow (? Wanbrow) and 
Forbury Head, Otago. Those from the last-named locality are 
small, scarcely an inch in height; and those from Cape Why- 
brow do not attain the usual size of European and Australian 
specimens, the largest not exceeding 3 inches. The leaves are 
entire or deeply toothed in all my specimens, never pinnatifid, 
and the flowers equal the calyx. The racemes are elongated and 
open in fruit, and the pod is narrowed at both ends. It will 
doubtless be found in other localities; but, from its small size, 
may easily be overlooked. 
Myriophyllum verrucosum, Lind|.—I collected this plant in ponds 
between Tauranga Harbour and the sea, but am not aware of 
its occurrence in any other part of the Colony. It differs from 
M. elatinoides and M. vaviefolium in its more slender habit, and in 
having all the floral leaves pinnatifid ; the flowers are small, with 
minute sepals, and the carpels are tuberculated. 
OO oo eee 
* From the Linnean Society’s Journal, 28th August, 1882. 
