SCIENCE DEMONSTRATION IN SCHOOLS. 565 
drawn to Science, and to Science well ¢azght,—as the following 
quotation from a teacher’s letter to Mr. Harrison will show (the 
writer was one of the hardest-working assistant teachers in Bir- 
mingham, and his testimony was spontaneous) :— 
“T have attended eight or ten Science classes, and gained 
several certificates, but from them all I have not gained so much 
knowledge as by listening to your lessons.” 
I venture to hope that this system of Science teaching in 
elementary schools by specially appointed demonstrators, will 
obtain authoritative endorsement as the right one. Dr. Crosskey 
tells me that he has had to fight for it against objections of the 
following kind :— 
I. “ The regular teachers can do all the Science which is 
needed.” Those, however, who know how completely their time 
is occupied under the present system, can see at once that there 
is really no time available for the necessary experimental pre- 
parations. | 
II. “Only a few elementary principles can be taught, and 
this special supply of apparatus and demonstrators is beyond 
the mark.” To this it is sufficient to reply, that the careful 
scientific demonstration of the simplest principles is a necessity 
for their apprehension. As my father, Dr. Carpenter, said to me 
once, “I hold that every child should have his hand on an air- 
pump receiver, while the air is exhausted from beneath it, and 
should see for himself the circulation of the blood in the frog’s 
foot.” As his son, I can testify to the vividness of the impres- 
sion made upon my boyish mind, at about eight years old, by 
these very things. 
III. “It will interfere with the ordinary school work,” was 
frequently urged. The best answer to this is the results,—which 
show that the schools in which the Birmingham Board passes 
most in Science, are also the Jes¢ in the ordinary school work, 
since the general intelligence is so much quickened. 
The general scheme of instruction given in the various 
standards and years, upon the lines and in the manner indicated 
above, may be thus summarised; it commences after the children 
have passed the 4th standard :— 
Boys. ist Stage-—Matter in three states, solids, liquids, and 
gases. Mechanical properties peculiar to each state. Matter 
is porous, compressible, elastic. Measurement as practised by 
mechanics. Production of a plane surface. Measures of length, 
time, and velocity. 
In Birmingham this is given in twenty-one lessons, in 
Liverpool in thirty-four. Both courses include such prac- 
tical subjects as the spirit-level, air-pump, barometer, 
syphon, water-pumps and valves, thermometer, clocks, 
hydrometers, filters, &c., &c. 
Boys. 2nd Stage——This comprises the meaning of Force, and 
the work done by it; gravitation and the three laws of motion ; 
the idea of Energy, both kinetic and potential, and of its Con- 
servation. 
