2 
the intellectual and moral powers. Information consists in the com- 
munication of facts, and. appeals more to the retentive than to the 
digestive faculties of the mind. It is chiefly education, and next to it 
information, which the schoolmaster wishes to accomplish, and, it is 
evident that education requires a method of teaching and handling a 
subject quite different from information. Supposing, now, that a 
teacher wishes to teach botany chiefly for the purpose of education, 
introducing at the same time as much valuable information as the 
minds of his pupils are able to assimilate, without interference with 
true education, it will be necessary for him to work out the most 
suitable method ; — and that is just his most difficult problem, How, 
as it will help us to form an approximate estimate of the great 
importance of the method question, I may refer to the opinion of a 
most competent authority in the matter of science teaching m schools, 
Mr. I. M. Wilson, science master at Eugby. “ There are,” says Mr. 
Wilson, “ two different methods of teaching science : one the method 
of investigation, the other the method of authority. The first starts 
with the concrete and works up to the abstract ; starts with facts and 
ends with laws ; begins with the known and proceeds to the unknown. 
The second starts with what we call the principles of the science : 
announces laws and includes the facts under them- declares the 
unknown and applies it to the known. The first demands faith, the 
second criticism. Of the two the latter is easier, and the former by 
far the better.” He then goes on to say, “ Knowledge must precede 
science, for science is nothing else but systematised experience and 
knowledge. In its expreme application this principle is obvious 
enough. It would be absurd to teach boys classification from minerals, 
or the power of experimental science by an investigation into the 
organic bases, &c.” . 
So much about method in general. Mr. Wilson then explains 
how that method is to be practically applied, as follows : — “ It. is the 
master’s business to take up the knowledge that already exists, to 
systematise it and arrange it, to give it extension here and accuracy 
there ; to connect scraps of knowledge that seem isolated ; to point out 
where progress is stopped by ignorance of facts, and to show how to 
remedy ignorance. Unless this method of investigation is followed 
the teaching of science may degenerate into cramming.” In another 
passage he thus describes a systematic method of teaching botany : 
“ Suppose, then, your class of thirty to forty boys before you, of ages 
from thirteen to sixteen, as they sit at their first botanical lesson : 
some, curious to know what is going to happen ; some resigned to 
anything ; some convinced that it is a folly. You hand round to each 
boy several specimens, say of the herb Hubert, and taking one of the 
flowers you ask one of them to describe the parts of it. Some pink 
leaves,’ is the reply. 4 How many ?’— ‘ Hive.’ 4 Any other parts 
< Some little things inside.’ ‘ Anything outside ?’ — 4 Some green leaves. 
‘How many?’— ‘Hive.’ ‘Very good! How pull off the five green 
leaves outside, and lay them side by side, and examine the little things 
