114 



SCIEXCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 157 



quality has resulted, with a consequent decrease 

 in demand. 



The present condition of the sea-fisheries of 

 New England is a deplorable one. Whatever is 

 to be done for their amendment, it is to be hoped 

 that our diplomatists will not suppose that they 

 will profit by the privileges of free fishing in 

 Canadian waters. 



ELEMENTARY SCIENCE-TEACHING. 



From all sides comes the advice to study science. 

 Teach science to children, put it in the kinder- 

 garten, double the amount of it at college, and 

 foster it at the universities. The opinion seems to 

 be current, that, by introducing a branch of science 

 on the school curriculum, the magic effect is to be 

 won. To give children objects to handle, to see, to 

 describe, and to puzzle over, is certainly an excel- 

 lent discipline. 



But the far-famed benefits to be derived from 

 science do not centre there, nor is it with the 

 methods of teaching science that fault is to be 

 found. The methods have been carefully worked 

 out: models, diagrams, specimens, excursions, — all 

 are pressed into service ; and, though the results 

 of this world-wide scientific movement have been 

 great beyond all expectation, one will readily ac- 

 cept the statement that elementary science-teach- 

 ing — excepting to elementary learners, children 

 just beginning their school education — is not 

 always gratifying work. To school-children who 

 have already received their formative training, — 

 who have swallowed, perhaps digested to a greater 

 or less extent, the usual doses of book-learning, — 

 whose minds have been set in the rut of an arbi- 

 trary bookish study method, the introduction of a 

 science course often brings more pain than pleas- 

 ure. 



A case in point recently came under my notice. 

 At a school for girls, an able and interesting lec- 

 turer gave a course in physiology. The lectures 

 were illustrated, and well-directed efforts were 

 made to make things clear. Recently an examina- 

 tion was held, and perhaps it will be worth while 

 sampling some of the more characteristic answers 

 to the questions then asked. The stomach is put 

 ' in the chest,' or ' is covered by a muscular bag 

 called the pericardium,' or ' is mostly on the left 

 side, just south of the heart.' The authority for 

 the last statement also showed an indignant sur- 

 prise at being told that her heart was nothing but 

 a muscle. Another anatomical fact nut yet rec- 

 ognized by the text-books is that ' the scapula has 

 no shape. 1 ' Capillaries are small particles in the 

 blood,' or 'are depressions in the arteries, and they 



change the fatty parts into blood.' Some feats of 

 swallowing and digesting are described. ' The 

 food passes from the mouth through the blood to 

 the stomach,' or ' is attracted downwards, and 

 then your Adam's apple slips over it : ' 'it passes 

 first to the small, then to the large, intestine.' 

 The surgery is also peculiar. When an artery is 

 partly cut, you are advised 1 to cut it open so as to 

 prevent the loss of too much blood.' or ' to cut it 

 entirely so as to allow it to coagulate.' The terms, 

 too, are caught up inexactly and without defi- 

 nite ideas: ' vains,' ' venus.' ' gaul,' 'color-bone,' 

 ' clerical ' (for ' cervical'), ' ablutions' (for ' albu- 

 men '), ' humerous ' (for ' humerus '). By a pecul- 

 iar association of ideas, the young lady respon- 

 sible for the last innovation states that this bone 

 is commonly called the 'crazy' bone. 



On the whole, the answers were very good. 

 Those given above are purposely selected for their 

 peculiarity. The girls too, with some exceptions 

 (mostly from twelve to sixteen years of age), took 

 great interest in the subject. Nor is the school to 

 blame. The early training of these girls was en- 

 tirely opposed to these new methods of teaching. 

 It is not the science that is strange to them ; but 

 there is a struggle going on in their minds parallel 

 to the battle between the ' new ' and the ' old ' 

 educationalists in the reviews. This leads to a 

 confusion of thought, a muddled-headedness, which 

 perhaps is the most characteristic feature of the 

 above answers. The whole moral can be summed 

 up in one phrase. It is not in the direction of 

 science-teaching, but of scientific teaching (and 

 that, too, from the cradle onward), that the future 

 of education is to develop. 



With the above experience fresh in mind, I came 

 upon a second example of elementary science- 

 teaching, of a most ingenious kind. It is nothing 

 less than an attempt to give to children an account 

 of the physiology of the brain (Frank Bellew, 

 St Nicholas, February, 1886). The ' firm of Big 

 Brain, Little Brain & Co.' tends to the business af- 

 fairs of the body. The cerebrum is the adminis- 

 trative department. There the head of the firm, 

 old Big Brain, sits at his desk surrounded by pa- 

 pers and all the appliances of a modern business- 

 office. At one side is a telegraph-key to bones ; on 

 the other, pigeon-holes and register cases. Below 

 him, on one side, is Little Brain, (the cerebellum), 

 a little elf tending to the machine ; on the other, 

 the ganglia, or gang of five clerks on high stools. 

 These put down the accumulated expenses of Big 

 Brain, and do the book-keeping. One of the little 

 band is in the office receiving an order from Big 

 Brain. In the middle is the Bridge (Pons), keeping 

 up a continual clatter of telegraph-keys, trans- 

 mitting messages from one part of the brain to 



