PART III. SCIENCE.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ORDER OF STUDY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO SCIENTIFIC TEACHING.

By Dorothea Beale.

As Rosencranz expresses it, there may be distinguished three epochs:—

I. The intuitive—I use the word with the German meaning of sense-perception.

II. The imaginative, during which the developing mind is more accustomed to dwell on mental images, is less passive to impressions, more active in calling them up, in fashioning them anew.

III. The logical, during which the impulse is to harmonise the world without and the world within, to fit all things into a scheme of space and time, of order and law.

Regarding these, we may ask what is the thought-material in which the developing mind may best work successively—or if we take the same material, in what varying way shall we deal with it? The near objects which the children can touch and taste and see objectively, these are the first things which call forth the attention, that self-activity by which the mind fastens on its prey, and converts percepts into concepts; as the jelly fish catches the floating prey in its tentacles, and absorbs it into its substance, so the child stores up experiences and memories which enrich all future percepts.

Botany.What subject of systematic study can be better suited to the child then, than that which calls out its sense of wonder and beauty, and which in harmony with its own restless nature is ever changing; in which is found endless variety with underlying order? Surely the world of flowers is specially suited for teaching the little ones. How the colours and forms delight them—has not the first sight of a flower remained with many of us through life, “a joy for ever”? It is for us to teach how to observe, so that the memories shall be not mere vague impressions, but clear-cut, accurate, lasting: all the senses must combine to give unity and completeness to the sense-concept, so that the child may feel the beauty, enter into loving sympathy with Nature, and perfect that “inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude”. Children should be led to form collections, by which the first observations may be repeated and fulfilled; they should also learn to draw, so that not merely the individual, but the essential, the typical may be brought into clearness; we should, too, encourage in them the desire to co-operate with Nature in making the earth beautiful, and call out the affections towards the Unseen Giver of all good things.

These are a few of the reasons why botany in its simplest forms is fit nourishment for the child. The hard names, the intricate divisions into classes and orders, the physiology of growing plants can be touched on only lightly; but the power of observation can be greatly developed, and the main facts of classificatory botany can be taught, and teaching full of interest given as regards structure, growth, seed distribution and relations to the insect world. Mrs. Bell’s Science Ladders form a good introduction. When we have exhausted our material, so far as the little child is capable of understanding, it is better to turn to some fresh subject; we may later, when the mind is ripe for these things, take the subject up again. Children whose eyes have been opened, will be able to go into the country, and note down the things they have seen. Diaries I have seen quite beautifully kept by poor children taught at the House of Education at Ambleside. The children knew the different buds as they came out on the trees, and watched the delicate and deepening tints, saw the leaf-buds develop into leaves, and the opening of the flowers.

Zoology.Elementary botany should, I think, be followed by a year of zoology (say at ten years old), treated in a simple way; the teacher should dwell not upon the internal structure, but on what presents itself to the eye, beginning with living creatures that the children are familiar with, or can get to know—domestic animals, “beasties” from garden and pond, caterpillars and birds, tadpoles and dragon-flies—they should have their menageries, and watch the creatures’ habits. Especially suited to women is the work of observing insect life, and there are worlds for us to discover, if we, as we walk round our garden, have eyes to see.

The animal world too is specially calculated to develop the affections rightly. The character of the human being is too complex, too far above the understanding of the child, and as long as he is dependent, he should not be exercised in observing and chronicling the doings of those whom he cannot yet understand. It is something to give him objects, on which he can exercise his powers of criticism and observation. So too the sense of responsibility may be fostered towards those who depend upon him, and are in his power.

Astronomy.These two sciences bring the child into contact with things on the earth; he might next lift up his eyes to the heavens. It delights the child to learn the names of the constellations, and trace their forms, to notice the movements of the planets, the changing aspect of the sky as the years go round. The sense of the greatness of the universe gradually dawns on him, and the awe and reverence for that power and wisdom which is revealed in the heavens, prepares the way for those deeper teachings which belong to religion. Especially stimulating is astronomy to the developing reflective powers, from the number and variety of problems it suggests; and yet it is not altogether baffling, for the child can be led on to draw conclusions respecting the movements and distances of the heavenly bodies; very early he can be shown how to solve such questions by simple processes, and thus the mathematical passion awakened; surely most of us can remember the first time that our soul really ascended into the seventh heaven. I have heard a mathematician describe what it was to him—how at fourteen he fled from the school into the fields to be alone.

Physical geography.And what next? There is something near to the child, which he can touch, which lies at his feet, a magic book with mysterious characters, in which he reads of infinite time; let him open the pages of the great rock-book, and gather the relics of the past. Geology will help him to observe in a new way; astronomy and geology (I use it in the sense of earth-history) are more suited than the two first to the beginning of the reflective period, because there is nothing to be done to alter the objects of the two last sciences—whereas we can do much, and observe the effect of our doings on plants and animals.

Physiography, including geology and all that has to do with the phenomena of Nature included under the head of physical geography, would claim a two years’ course and unify the subjects already touched on: the pupil will learn many facts on physical science.

And now the girl, say about fifteen, with an increasing power of abstraction and reflection, and a greater knowledge of mathematics, will be ready to receive more formal and definite instruction regarding what we call matter and force—elementary physics; the subjects of light and heat, electricity or chemistry might be selected; the girl is becoming the woman—the reflective powers are gaining the ascendant—she is longing to interpret more than to gain ever more knowledge, she understands something of physics and chemistry; let her return now to her first study and carry it still further, see the mysteries of life revealed in the flower, take physiological botany, the chemical changes produced by the physical processes, watch the plants as they grow, and trace the relation of flower and insect, plant and animal—recognise that all-embracing intelligence working in all, which has harmonised not only the outward things, but the intelligence of every living creature, and made each able more or less to know the laws of their life and to obey them. The developing and deepening religious instinct will find utterances from heaven in these earthly things, hear the voice of God among the trees of the garden. Later still we can pass into the inner temple, treat of physiology, show how marvellous is the living tabernacle of the soul, how fitted for our temporary abode.

It is objected by some that physiology should not be studied because it involves the whole circle of sciences, whilst others regard it as the most necessary and fundamental branch of instruction. Experienced teachers know that much of great educative and practical value can be given on the lines of Mrs. Bell’s Laws of Health, and brought home to comparatively uneducated people by the tracts of the Ladies’ Health Society, and we all know how important it is for those who are growing into womanhood, that the subject should be treated with the wisdom and judgment and reverence which it demands.

On the later stages of the teaching of natural science I do not propose to dwell. Those who take up science as a speciality will have to limit the field, and others will be guided by circumstances, but whatever special line they may follow later, such a course of study must surely have nourished the powers of the mind, developed the sympathies, disciplined the character, enlarged the horizon beyond the petty concerns which occupy the whole attention of the uneducated of all sorts and conditions. The woman who has really thought about these things, when she travels will see things with different eyes, she will understand enough to profit by the companionship of able and thoughtful men, and later perhaps to share it may be a man’s work as Miss Herschel, and Mrs. Huggins, and Mrs. Proctor, and Mrs. Marshall, and Mrs. Sidgwick and many more—to be the friend of her brothers and the first teacher of her sons—and she will surely have learned the first lesson of wisdom, the humility which knows that all we know is to know that our knowledge is as nothing in the presence of the Infinite, that if any man think that he knows, he knows nothing as he ought to know it.

I have worked out the order in detail in respect to science; it will be enough to touch very briefly on the parallel teachings in other subjects, which must also be taught scientifically.

Take, e.g., language. The child is ever observing and imitating; restless activity characterises the child.

The teacher has to perfect the observing powers by insisting on right pronunciation, as I have shown in another chapter, first in English, then in another language; knowledge is first empirical.

Next will follow, not grammatical definitions and rules to be learned, but the discovery of classification, just as in the case of botany, through observation—the discovery of rules inductively; then, when the need is felt for a shortening of the process, the collections made by grammarians may be produced, as the book of dried specimens, say of ferns, which the child had not time and opportunity to collect for herself. Afterwards will come reading and reflection upon the relationship of words, like the systems of scientific classification of flowers, and later the age of poetry and philosophy. It is the giving the grammatical abstractions to children who are at the stage of observation merely, which creates the distaste for school learning; it is the giving dead languages at a time when children are at the active, intuitive age, and have not the powers of thought necessary to disentangle the classical authors, that makes so much of our teaching a failure.

So with history. First the simple tales, e.g., Jack and the Giant—no complications of character there—good and bad, black and white—stories of fairies and hobgoblins, beings so unlike ourselves, that we are not troubled too much with moral scruples; they are like dream people. Then old-world heroes, in whom the moral emerges—not the priggish boys and girls, to cramp the character, but boys and girls, writ large. Then passing from the individual to the general, the specimen to the species, we have family life enlarged to the state under a kingly constitution, as in ancient patriarchal times, the first teachings of which are best gathered from the Old Testament. As in the nature teachings we shall lead children to feel underlying all, the sense as of an unseen presence, a King of Kings ruling the course of this world, leading and guiding the mind of man to work with Him as in the nature realm. And lastly in the highest teachings, which have to do, not with the objective surroundings, but with the man himself, with his thoughts and aspirations, with the expression of these in literature, in art, in ethics, and politics, and philosophy, the student will find enough to develop the highest powers of thought, as he wrestles with the problems of life, when he has reached the later period of study.

And the same order is observed in religion. The objective first—the Divine acts seen in nature, in the acts of the good, in the punishment of evil; at first the thought of God is more objective, since it must be so in the early life of the child under parental government. Later more subjective, through conscience. Sin is at first regarded chiefly as an act against a loving person, later it is felt to be the degradation of our nature, or that of others, by taking in a poison as it were; or as ἁμαρτια, the frustration of the true ends of our being, the exclusion from the light and life and joy of the Divine presence, which is the soul’s sunlight, into outer darkness—the conceptions formed will be different, the underlying truths one, the thoughts will pass from the physical to the panpsychical, and later to the highest conceivable by us—the anthropomorphic, stripped of the transitory and the finite, but embracing all those eternal things by which we know that we are more than creatures of time, since we gladly throw from us all that would then be our highest good, for the things which eye sees not and ear hears not, but which can come to us by revelation only of the spiritual; things which all men, in all ages, have felt to be the best, whatever their actions may have been, truth, love, righteousness, justice, the eternal things.

The worst man knows in his conscience more

Than the best man does, whom we bow before.

THE TEACHING OF THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES.

By Charlotte L. Laurie.

Introduction.The biological sciences deal with the manifestations of life. This distinguishes them at once from the physical and chemical sciences; not, indeed, that it is possible to understand the life of any organism without some knowledge of physics and chemistry; thus to explain intelligibly the circulation of the blood some acquaintance with mechanics is necessary, but organisms have certain properties which belong to them from the very fact of their being endowed with life; the inherent properties of protoplasm, its contractility, irritability, etc., are all vital properties due to the presence of life.

The first point then that a teacher of biology has to decide in order to teach this subject rightly is: What is it possible to teach about life? Is this nineteenth century with its marvellous electrical discoveries any nearer the secret of life? Although it may fairly be claimed that the manifestations of life are better understood, yet scientists will be the first to confess that what life itself is still remains a mystery; therefore the teacher of biology must never be satisfied without arousing in the minds of his pupils a growing consciousness of the limitations of knowledge, the basis of true reverence. Any teaching of science, not only of biology, which fails to do this is defective.

Development of observation (a) in class and home work.The teacher of biology then will desire first of all to develop a reverent attitude of mind, so that the facts of life may be understood aright. Observation of vital phenomena is by no means an easy thing; it needs much accuracy, constant patience and minute attention to detail. In school teaching the foundations of accurate observation ought to be laid. Botany affords much scope for this. In planning lessons, in choosing specimens for home work, the teacher should aim at developing this faculty. A lesson on a buttercup may very well be followed by home work on a marsh marigold. The two plants belong to the same order and have great similarity in structure, but certain important differences; the tendency of unobservant pupils will be to conclude that the same description will apply to both, and possibly nectaries will be described as present on the sepals of the marsh marigold instead of on the carpels, etc. As a rule, home work should demand original observation on the part of the pupils; it should not be a mere repetition of what has been done in class; thus, supposing the sweet-pea has been worked through in class, clover may be set for home work, provided of course that the class is sufficiently advanced.

Then, as regards the observation of vital phenomena, it is possible to show that plants, like animals, take in oxygen. The details of “Garreau’s experiment” can be contrived even in schools where there is no physiological laboratory; with a water plant such as Anacharis, the evolution of oxygen in the making of starch can be demonstrated; and with such a simple thing as yeast growing in sugar and water, it is easy to show that carbonic acid gas is given off by fungi; more elaborate experiments are necessary to demonstrate the evolution of this gas by green plants. The teacher should always point out any similarity of process in plants and animals; transpiration of plants should be compared with the perspiration of animals, so that after a few lessons on the physiology of plants, it is possible to indicate the essential differences between plants and animals as far as they are known.

In zoology, as in botany, the teacher should aim at developing the power of observation, but zoology is a much more difficult subject to teach well; for it is not always possible to get animals for observation, consequently lessons in zoology are often dry; they are wanting in that living interest which comes not from book study, but from watching the animal itself. Where, however, this has been done, keen interest is aroused. A teacher who has spent hours off the coasts of Devonshire, pulling sea-anemones out of the crevices of the rocks, or watching them expand their tentacles and draw them in, will give a very different lesson from one who has merely read about a sea-anemone.

A class, having lessons in zoology, should have access to an aquarium, which can be kept in the class-room, and in planning a course on this subject, especially for young children, it is most important to choose those types which can be observed. In a first year’s course for children of ten or eleven, preference should be given to the habits of the animals, and structure introduced only so far as is necessary to explain habit. Living specimens for lessons may be obtained from aquaria in Jersey, Birmingham and elsewhere.

(b) By means of field work.It is not possible, however, to do all that ought to be done in developing observation within the limits of an hour a week in a schoolroom. The teacher of botany or zoology should be willing to organise expeditions into the country for botanising or pond grubbing. Here we have a Field Club, consisting of three or four sections: botanical, geological, zoological, archæological. The teacher of each subject is naturally the leader of the section, and is thus able to arouse a keener interest than is possible in the class-room alone. A yearly conversazione, when collections are exhibited, gives zest to the working of the sections, brings all the members of the club together, and affords an opportunity for obtaining a lecture from some original worker. It is found that if 200 belong to a school society of this kind, each member subscribing one shilling a year, a conversazione can be held, and prizes for collections given out of the funds of the society; each member bears in addition her share of the expense of an expedition; but the less expensive and the nearer home these are, the better.

(c) Through a museum.An excellent means of arousing a real interest in science lessons, and of developing the observation, is to have a school museum. That part of the museum devoted to natural history should combine two functions; it should have perfect specimens of the chief types of animal life arranged morphologically; for instance, the covering organs, such as scales of fishes, feathers of birds, hair of animals, should be grouped together, so that the homology of these organs can be seen at a glance; secondly, the museum should have surplus specimens specially intended for teaching purposes. One specimen will not serve these two purposes; for the only way of preserving any specimen in its perfection is to keep it under lock and key in a glass case, which must be air- and dust-tight. As soon as a specimen is taken out and passed about from teacher to teacher and from class to class, it will inevitably get damaged, as the curator of many a school museum can testify.

What share can the pupils take in the museum work? They may furnish specimens, but here the difficulty is to get them perfect enough; children require to be trained to aim at a standard of perfection, and in this particular the school museum may do valuable work; at the same time if the curator demands too much, the ardour of the children becomes damped; so it is sometimes well to accept an imperfect specimen, and put it in the museum until a more perfect one is forthcoming. Pupils can also do much useful work in making diagrams and drawings; every specimen in the science portion of the museum should be drawn, and parts explained by means of an accompanying diagram. Reference may here be made to the [scheme] at the end of this paper for a specimen museum case, illustrating the flowering plant. It has been drawn up on the lines of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, where, as is well known, great attention is paid by Sir William Flower to the homology of organs. This scheme has been carried out in our museum; almost every specimen has been illustrated with a drawing done by pupils, the scientific explanation being written by the teacher. In the first instance, as the case was being arranged, specimens and diagrams were merely pinned, not gummed, so that as the work progressed it was possible to alter and improve upon the first arrangement.

(d) Use of microscopes.In connection with the development of observation, a word may be said about the use of the microscope in schools. Every school should have at least one microscope, if even it has only one or two powers; a great deal can be done with a 1-inch and 2-inch objectives. At present many girls take the course required by the University of Oxford for the Senior Local without having seen a single structure under the microscope. This ought not to be, especially now that microscopes are so inexpensive (a microscope with 1-inch and ¹⁄₄-inch objectives can be obtained for £3 6s.).

There is considerable difficulty in managing microscope work with large classes; not more than two pupils, or at the most three, can work at a microscope at the same time, and where there are only one or two microscopes in a school, the simplest plan is for the teacher of botany to have pupils out singly, whilst the rest of the class are doing paper work at their desks. Lantern slides are an immense help in class work, but they cannot altogether take the place of the microscope, and it is very important that elder pupils likely to do anything at science should learn to manipulate the microscope.

Order of lessons.In no subject is it more necessary to plan lessons carefully than in science, for not only does the development of the observing faculty depend on a right sequence, but the scope of science is ever widening.

Biology alone includes at the present time subdivisions which hardly existed thirty years ago. Teachers of botany now have to find time for vegetable morphology, histology and physiology, for the life-histories of plants as well as for the descriptions necessary to classification. At the same time there are other considerations, besides a right sequence, which must be borne in mind in planning a course. Theoretically, it would be best in botany to begin with a description of the plant as a whole; root, stem, leaf, flower, branch, and the relation of these parts to each other, should be the subject of the first lessons. But children of ten or eleven could hardly be expected to be interested in learning that a leaf is a lateral appendage of a stem, and a branch an axillary outgrowth, whereas they are fascinated by flowers, and enjoy lessons about the visits of insects to flowers, etc. Undoubtedly with young children it would be wiser to begin with the flower and gradually lead up to the plant as a whole. The teacher, too, must be guided to some extent at any rate by his own individuality. In a subject as wide as botany some minds are attracted by one part, some by another; one teacher can be so luminous in his account of structure and its adaptation to function that the children are in their turn interested, especially if minute structure is seen through the microscope, and the delight of drawing forms part of the lesson. Another teacher revels in classification, and loves to point out the resemblances between plants of one order and those of another.

There must be, and it is almost impossible to over-emphasise this, a certain sequence, a certain gradation, a definite plan, on which the lessons are arranged; but this plan, this sequence should be the teacher’s own, it should be the outcome of his own individuality; he will best teach what most interests him, hence he had better follow his own order than that of any text-book, however excellent. In higher classes, where the work is arranged on examination lines, the teacher has a definite syllabus for his guidance; but even in this case there is play for his individuality, and nothing can dispense with this. He must be always reading the new books on his subject; he must keep himself in touch with the new work that is being done through visiting museums, botanical gardens, working in laboratories, etc., so as to be keen about his subject, otherwise his lessons will be dull and lifeless, and the unforgivable sin in a teacher is dulness.

Science cultivates the faculties of imagination and reasoning.Although teachers of biology will naturally attach much importance to the development of observation, it is very necessary to remember that observation is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. If teachers aim only at cultivating the faculty of observation, they are likely to produce pupils who will make good collectors (a work not to be despised), but nothing more. The accurate observation of facts is absolutely necessary, but it is by no means the only thing to be done in science teaching. The power of generalisation, from the facts collected, should follow if science is to advance at all. It may be thought that this cannot be done in school work, but surely some attempt should be made in this direction, for it is most necessary that pupils should be taught to understand, to some extent at any rate, when a generalisation is sound and when unsound. This is specially the case in teaching physiology; for instance, pupils are most interested in hearing something of the cell theory of the body, and can quite appreciate the bearing of the discovery, that the walls of the capillary blood-vessels are composed of cells, on this theory.

Science is not a matter merely of memory and accurate observation, it needs considerable reasoning power and much imagination, for without the power of seeing resemblances in facts, i.e., true induction, progress is impossible. The theory of evolution, which has revolutionised not only science, but the whole thought of the present day, could never have been formulated had Darwin and Wallace been mere observers, however accurate, and in this connection a science teacher may be allowed to bear witness to the importance of the Humanities in the training of the mind. As a scholar of Shrewsbury Grammar School, Darwin had little training in science, but possibly without the mental discipline of the classics, he would have been unable to accomplish what he did for science in later life; for the higher walks of science require much imagination. In science lessons pupils may be called on to devise experiments for themselves, to invent diagrams, to find out resemblances, to note dissimilarities, in order to develop the faculty of imagination. Speaking very generally, in younger classes the aim of the teacher will be to cultivate the faculty of observation, in the upper to develop not only observation, but the imagination and power of reasoning.

Notes of a Specimen Lesson on Growth of Seedlings for Senior Oxford Class.

Time—one hour.

In a previous lesson the structure of the seed of bean, maize and sunflower has been given.

Material required:—

A. Seedlings of bean, maize and sunflower, ten days old; one of each kind for each pupil.

B. Seedlings of the above, three weeks old.

C. Seedlings grown in different media; water, sawdust, soil.

1. The Seedlings of the Broad Bean should first be examined.

(a) The radicle, observed in the seed, has given rise to the primary root, on which possibly lateral roots have begun to develop. This is an instance of a true tap root.

(b) The plumule is beginning to form the stem.

These points should be emphasised by means of the blackboard, the pupils themselves drawing the seedlings as exactly as possible, always naming each part.

2. Seedlings of Sunflower.—These the pupils should describe as far as possible by themselves. They should notice from the green colour and absence of soil on the cotyledons that they are above ground, and that there is a portion of the seedling between the cotyledons and the beginning of the root; this the teacher tells them is called the hypocotyledonary portion of the stem, and the pupils ought to be able from previous lessons to explain the word, or even to make it up for themselves.

3. Seedlings of Maize.—Here the pupils will be able to describe by themselves the endosperm and the primary root, provided that only one root has shown itself. If the lateral roots have begun to develop, the teacher must explain which are lateral and which primary, and point out the difference between the primary root of this seedling and that of the bean and sunflower. It should be noticed that there is only one cotyledon, and here the point to emphasise is, that the bean and sunflower live on the food contained in, or made by, the cotyledons; the maize on the food present in the endosperm.

The seedlings three weeks old should then be compared with those already observed, the differences in length of radicle and plumule being noted.

The observation of these seedlings will naturally suggest the subject of growth. What is growth? By judicious questioning the teacher will show that it is impossible to define it, except by its manifestations in plants and animals; it is associated with the taking in of food; then by comparing the growth of a building or rock with that of a plant and animal, it will be possible to give some idea of growth by accretion as distinct from growth by assimilation; thus the mystery of growth will be gradually approached, the teacher pointing out that growth is only possible where there is life. This should be illustrated in every possible way, e.g., growth of the body, of the mind, of a school, a nation, etc.

Lastly, the effect of environment on growth will be illustrated by the seedlings grown in different media.

The home work in connection with this lesson should consist of: (1) Descriptions of seedlings; instead of maize, wheat may be given; nasturtium instead of bean; these the teacher must have ready for distribution; a drawing of each should be insisted on, with parts named; (2) Short notes on the conditions of growth and its essential nature.

The children should also be invited to grow seedlings for themselves; these should be exhibited in subsequent lessons.

LIST OF BOOKS ON BOTANY.

(A) Text-books for Class Use.

Elementary Botany. By Joseph Oliver. 2/-. Blackie. Useful for S. Kensington and London Matriculation.

Elementary Text-book of Botany. By Edith Aitkin. 4/6. Longmans. This is specially suitable for Senior Oxford Course.

Student’s Introductory Handbook of Systematic Botany (Blackie’s Science Text-books). By Joseph Oliver. 4/6. This is one of the best text-books for Group E of Cambridge Women’s Examination.

Practical Elementary Biology. By Bidgood. 4/6. Longmans. This gives most of the types, animal as well as vegetable, required for the Biology of Group E of Cambridge Women’s Examination.

(B) For Teachers.

Naked-eye Botany. With Illustrations and Floral Problems. By F. E. Kitchener. 2/6. Percival & Co. Very useful for teachers of younger classes; it is most suggestive.

A Manual of Botany. By Reynolds Green. Churchill. Vol. i. Morphology and Anatomy. 7/6. Vol. ii. Classification and Physiology. 10/-. Very helpful for London Examination work.

The Natural History of Plants. From the German of Kerner von Marilaun. Translated by F. W. Oliver. 4 vols. 12/6 each. Blackie. This is a very readable book, full of suggestion and beautiful drawings, and not too technical.

Handbook of the British Flora. By Bentham. Vol. i., 10/6. Illustrations of the British Flora, vol. ii., 10/6. Reeve & Co. This is indispensable for the identification of species.

A Student’s Text-book of Botany. By Vines. 21/-. Sonnenschein.

Practical Botany. By Bower and Vines. 10/6. Macmillan. Both of these are very technical, suitable only for advanced work.

MUSEUM SPECIMEN CASE.
BOTANY.
ANGIOSPERMS OR FLOWERING PLANTS.

Root.	Stem.
Tap Root.—Seedling of Sunflower.	(a) Underground stems.
Tap Root.—Seedling of Sunflower.	Rhizome—Solomon’s Seal.
Primary Root.—Seedling of Maize (not a tap root).	Bulb—Long: Section of Ranunculus bulbosus.
Primary Root.—Seedling of Maize (not a tap root).	Corm—Long: Section of crocus.
Histology of root. Drawing of transverse section of adicotyledonous root, showing axial arrangement of bundles.	Tubers—Drawing of potato in different stages of growth.
	Runner—Drawing of strawberry.
	(b) Histology of stem.
Development of bundles. Illustrated by drawings of transverse sectionsof young and old roots.	Drawings of transverse and longitudinal sections of monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous stems.
Origin of lateral roots. Drawing through long section ofroot, showing lateral roots arising from pericycle.	Specimens of bast fibres of hemp, Mexican aloe, lace tree.
	(c) Axillary outgrowths of stem or modified branches.
Forms of roots. Drawings of carrot, turnip, orchid, etc.	Tendrils—Sweet bryony.
Forms of roots. Drawings of carrot, turnip, orchid, etc.	Thorns—Black thorn and gorse.

Leaves.

1. Drawing of poppy plant in five different stages, showing cotyledons, foliage and floral leaves, in illustration of Goethe’s generalisation, “all lateral appendages of the stem are leaves”.

2. Cotyledons. Seedlings of mustard, cress, nasturtium, etc. Drawings of bean to show fleshy cotyledons. Seedling of maize.

3. Covering leaves.

(a) Bud scales from horse chestnut.

(b) Bracts forming an involucre as in the wild carrot, black knapweed, acorn.

4. Foliage leaves.

A typical leaf with parts named.

Drawing of transverse section.

Arrangement of foliage leaves, alternate and whorled (including opposite).

The chief types of “simple divided” and “compound” leaves should be mounted.

Chief modifications of foliage leaves:—

(a) Tendrils for climbing—Vetch.

Petiole developed into tendril—Lathyrus aphaca (rare).

(b) Spines—Barberry.

(d) Modifications due to the medium in which the plant lives—Water crowfoot.

The Flower.

I. Inflorescences.—A specimen and diagram of each.

Racemose. (1) Capitulum, e.g., daisy; (2) raceme, e.g., lily of the valley; (3) spike, e.g., wheat.

Cymose. 1. Dichotomous, e.g., most of the Caryophyllaceæ.

2. Helicoid cyme. Forget-me-not.

3. Scorpioid cyme. Rock-rose.

4. Verticillaster. Dead nettle.

II. Flower.—Drawings (coloured alike throughout) to show hypogynous, perigynous and epigynous flower.

Calyx—Spurred, larkspur; galeate, monkshood.

Corolla—Papilionaceous, sweet-pea; bilabiate, dead nettle; rotate, convolvulus; cruciform, wall-flower.

Andrœcium—Diadelphous, sweet-pea; monadelphous, mallow; didynamous, dead nettle; tetradynamous, wall-flower. Attachment of anthers—drawings.

Ovaries—Diagram of monocarpellary and unilocular, tricarpellary and unilocular, polycarpellary and unilocular, polycarpellary and multilocular; free central.

Ovules—Drawing of orthotropous, anatropous and campylotropous—each part of the ovule coloured the same throughout.

Fertilisation.

The two forms of primrose to show heterostylism.

Drawing of figwort to show protogyny.

Drawing of epilobium angustifolium to show protandry.

Nectaries—Drawings of petal of buttercup, stamens of wall-flower, stamens of violet, carpel of marsh marigold, style of coltsfoot; nectaries coloured blue throughout.

Fruits.

A specimen and explanatory diagram of each.

Dry Indehiscent.	Dry Dehiscent.	Succulent.
Nut—	Follicle—	Berry—
Hazel. Acorn.	Marsh marigold.	Drawing of gooseberry.
Achene—	Legume—
Corn buttercup. Yellow goat’s beard. Clematis.	Sweet-pea.
	Capsule—	Drupe—
	Thlaspi arvense. Shepherd’s purse. Violet.	Drawing of peach.
Schizocarps—
Geranium and umbelliferæ.
	Porous Capsule—
	Poppy.

Spurious Fruits.

Pome—Apple; Hip—Rose; Haw—Hawthorn, etc., etc.

Modes of Dehiscence of Fruits. Diagram of

Septicidal—specimen of datura.
Loculicidal—specimen of horse chestnut.
Septifragal—specimen of cruciferæ.

Seed.

Bean (a) with testa; (b) without testa.

Maize (a) with pericarp; (b) without pericarp.

Date cut through to show position of embryo.

Coffee cut through to show position of embryo.

Walnut to show cotyledons.

Dispersion of Seeds.

1.	Wings.	—	Scale attached to seed of pinus. Wing attached to fruit of sycamore and ash. Seed of Bignonia alba.
2.	Hairs.	—	E.g., silky hairs of seed of cotton and epilobium. Pappus of compositæ (fruit). Awns of clematis (fruit).
3.	Hooks.	—	Bristles of geum.

GEOGRAPHY.

By Margery Reid, B.Sc. (Lond.).

Aim in teaching.It is a vexed question how far the study of geography should be looked upon as a training for the mind, or whether its primary function be not to supply material on which the trained mind may work.

This difficulty may be to some extent solved by dividing the geography teaching into two distinct branches—physical and general geography.

If this be not done it will be found that the general geography lesson is overloaded with a mass of explanations of physical phenomena.

Thus, in a general lesson on the climate of India, it detracts from the unity of the subject if the teacher is obliged to make a digression to explain the theory of barometric pressures, but, presupposing this scientific knowledge, references to the special application of it are within the bounds of the lesson.

Physical geography.The first course in physical geography should consist of lessons requiring only observation of phenomena with which the children are well acquainted.

Observation and experiment.In a town like Cheltenham, situated within walking distance of the source of the Thames, the subject of the watershed dividing the small streams flowing into the Severn from those flowing into the Thames, forms a much better subject for observation and reasoning than the form and movements of the earth. Simple experiments also may be performed, but artificial conditions should as far as possible be avoided. Thus in a lesson on the principles of evaporation, the children may be made to observe the gradual drying of a cloth, but if heat artificially obtained be used to hasten the operation, the object-lesson loses the greater part of its value.

Style of written work.At the beginning of this course the work should be almost entirely that of observation and simple reasoning, but it is well to insist from the very first that exercises either spoken or written should be good in form as well as in matter. The composition should be as terse as is compatible with clearness, though this applies rather to the description of experiments than observations, for in the case of an observation, if we are to minimise the danger of overlooking the true cause, all accidental circumstances must be carefully noted.

The difference between an observation and experiment should be carefully explained, and the children should be shown that whereas in an observation we have to listen to whatever Nature says, an experiment is a question so framed that Nature will answer “Yes” or “No,” and that we must only ask one question at a time. Thus we may ask the question: “Is water-vapour lighter than air?” We boil water in a kettle and the visible cloud appears above the spout showing that the invisible vapour must have risen as it left the kettle. The question asked was “Does water-vapour rise through the air?” and the answer is “Yes”. The children should then write a description of the experiment with as close attention to form as though it were a proposition of Euclid.

Experiment. To prove that water-vapour is lighter than air.

Apparatus. A kettle containing water and a spirit lamp.

Method. Place kettle on spirit lamp, light lamp and boil the water.

Result. Water-vapour issues from the spout in an invisible form and becomes visible as a cloud some little distance above the level of the spout.

Deduction. That water-vapour is lighter than air.

Subject-matter of the earliest course in Physical Geography.

This course should include lessons on the following subjects:—

Subject-matter of early course in physical geography.1. Clouds: introducing the foregoing experiment to show why they occur high up in the atmosphere and how they are produced.

2. Rain, snow, hail, etc.: the different conditions under which clouds discharge their moisture.

3. Winds, with only such simple facts about their causes as can be shown by the movements of air or draughts in a room. If tissue paper be cut into fine strips, and held at different points in a room in which is a fire, the draught towards the fire may be simply demonstrated and also the draught up the chimney.

4. The sea: its saltness, the rising and the falling of the tide and the fact that high tide is later by nearly an hour every day, also that some tides rise higher and retire lower than others. (Causes of tides should not be touched upon till later.) Waves and their causes.

Definitions.As this course proceeds the children should be exercised in the making of good definitions. It is a mistake to think that definitions must be given by the teacher. It is well to ask one child what she means by the word to be defined. Write the definition on the board, and then, by means of a series of questions to the children, criticise all those points which are superfluous in the definition given. Having eliminated all these, let the teacher take the definition as it now stands, and by giving examples of all the facts which come under it, show that it is probably a great deal too wide, and draw from the children gradually all the necessary limitations.

A definition so obtained will be easily remembered, and, as the children get practice in framing them, they will appreciate the meaning and neatness of a clear definition.

In the later part of this course the physical features of countries may be introduced, and the children should get clear conceptions and accurate definitions of terms commonly used in geography, such as mountains, valleys, plains, islands, capes, etc., and they should both be shown models and allowed themselves to make them.

The simpler facts concerning the work of rivers and other forces modifying the surface of the land will also find a place among these lessons.

The physical geography which should follow this preliminary work must of course be modified to suit the age and intelligence of the pupils.

Later course in physical geography.Physical and chemical experiments may now be introduced, and the mathematical side of the subject will be more insisted upon as the children begin to learn algebra and geometry.

The illustrations also need no longer be drawn from the child’s immediate surroundings, but may be the result of reading, or of description on the part of the teacher, and whereas in the lesson general laws are arrived at from special cases, in the home work the class should be encouraged to search for new cases illustrating the laws.

These later courses should be preceded by simple work on the physical and chemical properties of air and water. The form and movements of the earth should be treated of, and with the help of a tellurium most of the simple facts may be made clear, and the phenomena of the seasons and the varying length of day and night may be demonstrated. The nature of the proof of the earth’s movement round the sun is appreciated by few, and the children should be encouraged to make for themselves some of the observations on which it is based.

Thus they might be expected to keep an account of the groups of stars seen due south every evening at a given hour. The change of constellations will stimulate their curiosity, and it will not be necessary to wait for the whole year before giving them some explanation. Or they might be asked to keep a register of the varying length of the shadow of a stick at noon for three months. The fact could then easily be drawn from the children that the sun is at some times higher in the heavens than at others, but they would almost certainly have to be helped to find out the reason.

The meaning and use of the various lines ordinarily drawn on a globe may now be given.

The atmosphere: pressure and temperature.After this work on the earth as a planet, its gaseous envelope should next be studied, i.e., the atmosphere, its composition, pressure and temperature, and the instruments used for measuring them. In an earlier course the instrument and its use will be enough to deal with; in a course to older pupils the construction and correction of the instruments may be considered.

The children might keep a chart of both temperature and pressure for a month, and at the end of that time be taught to find the average temperature for the month, and to understand the methods for showing variations of the barometer used in the leading daily papers. The nature of isobars and isotherms should also be explained, and the isobars for July and January should be filled into two maps and kept for use later. A map with isotherms filled in should also be given, and the children encouraged to find reasons for the curves in any given line.

Winds.They will now be prepared to understand the laws treating of movements of the atmosphere. With younger classes only the more important winds should be taken, such as cyclones and anti-cyclones, land and sea breezes, trade and anti-trade winds and monsoons, whilst the older classes should be led to observe the local variations arising from peculiar circumstances.

When the principles are grasped, an exercise might be given to indicate with arrows the direction of the wind on the maps on which they have already marked the isobars.

Ocean depths.The water envelope of the world will next demand attention, i.e., the depth of the ocean and its deposits. This at first sight will appear to the children to be a subject about which they cannot possibly be expected to have any knowledge, but by a short recapitulation of the work of rivers treated in the preliminary course, the fact of the necessary existence of a continental shelf may be drawn from them, as also the fact that the breadth of this shelf will depend on the slope of the continent in the immediate neighbourhood of the coast, and on the amount of deposit made by rivers.

A wall map contoured to show depths in the Atlantic should be shown to the class, and the instruments should be described used in investigating depth and nature of the deposits on the ocean floor. With an older class the nature of the evidence with regard to the belief in the permanence of ocean basins may be touched upon.

Saltness of sea and causes regulating it. Various seas should be compared with regard to their salinity.

Tides.The tides. Their causes; spring and neap tides; reason for high tide being fifty-four minutes later each day. The subject of the tidal wave as experienced in England requires careful treatment, as many text-books leave the impression on the minds of children that the tidal wave in the North Sea travels from east to west, and that the shores of the Baltic are experiencing low tide when the eastern coast of England is having a high tide.

Currents.Currents. Causes of currents should be sought in the movements of the atmosphere. The class should be asked to indicate on the map showing winds, which they drew to illustrate a previous lesson, the effects of the trade and anti-trade winds in the production of currents. Attention must then be drawn to the way in which the position of the land modifies the currents so produced, and thus the class may gradually evolve a chart of the currents of the Atlantic. For an exercise they may be given a chart of the currents of the Pacific and asked for the causes of the direction of the currents.

Land.The teacher must then proceed to the more complex subject of the physical features of the land.

Mountains produced by folding; their position with regard to the ocean. Volcanoes and their distribution.

Hills produced by denudation.

Plains and valleys.

Rivers; their work and the various causes determining their volume, velocity and course.

Springs.

Islands.

Climate. Temperature and rainfall.

Distribution of plants and animals.

General geography.The order of treatment of the general geography of various countries does not vary, and consequently, notes of a first term’s course will sufficiently indicate the lines of later work. Opinions differ as to whether it is better to begin with the study of a continent or a smaller division of land.

Lesson I. Before the actual course begins, the children should have a preliminary lesson on the making of plans and the use of scales. A plan of the schoolroom and of the immediate surroundings has now-a-days generally been made by children whilst still in the Kindergarten, but if so, a little recapitulation will do no harm before a first lesson on the nature and meaning of a map.

The teacher’s preparation should be done several weeks in advance, so that no point essential to a later lesson may be omitted in its proper place.

Position of places on earth’s surface.Lesson II. For the second lesson an outline map of the continent or country to be studied is given to the children with the lines of latitude and longitude. If the work has not already been done in a physical course, the meaning of latitude and longitude should be clearly explained. After having shown that the distance between the equator and either of the poles is divided into 90 degrees, a sphere may now be taken, and by rough measurement the two parallels corresponding to those through the top and bottom of the given map may be drawn upon it. After a short description of what we mean by longitude, the longitude of the given country is then indicated on the sphere, and the use of the two sets of lines to show exact position on the earth will be appreciated. If it be not a first course, the position of the given country may be compared with others equidistant from the equator, or on the same meridian.

In this lesson may also be introduced a few words about the temperature of the given country so far as it is dependent on latitude.

Lesson III. Height above sea level.

Contouring.For this lesson the teacher should have drawn and painted for the class a map of the continent being studied, with contour lines marked in two different colours or with two different kinds of lines. (Too great detail only tends to confuse the children.)

The first contour line should be drawn joining all places 500 feet above the sea level, and the second joining all those places 1500 feet above sea level. Each child should then be provided with one of these maps, and a wall map similarly contoured and also coloured should be hung on the wall.

The teacher then explains the nature of contour lines, and shows that if that part of the map between the 500 contour line and the sea be coloured green, the coloured part will represent all that part of the land which is less than 500 feet high, that is, generally speaking, the plains. That part between the 500 and 1500 contour lines is then coloured light brown, and all those areas enclosed within the 1500 contour line a darker brown. When the maps are coloured, and each child has her own, they may then be taught how to read a map so coloured. The teacher will draw from the class that if the contour lines come close together the ground slopes very rapidly, but that the slope is more gradual when the contour lines are more widely separated—that the greatest height of the land lies near the greater ocean, and that the more gradual slope is towards the smaller ocean, and that this allows of the development of larger but slower rivers than those flowing down the steeper slope.

A raised model may then be shown to the class, and this may be coloured in the same way as the maps, but the children must clearly understand the disadvantages of a model, and be shown that the vertical heights are always enormously exaggerated in proportion to the horizontal distances.

In recapitulating, the children might be asked what they consider a common slope for the sides of mountains. Their notions will always be found to be extravagant, many of them thinking they have seen and even climbed slopes of 60 degrees and upwards. By placing a piece of india-rubber on the cover of a book, and gradually opening the book and sloping the cover till the india-rubber rolls off, the children may be shown how very small is the angle at which it is perfectly impossible for anything to rest on a slope, and that therefore if we find stones on the side of a hill, we know that the slope cannot be greater than 30 degrees. Examples may be drawn from any hill in the neighbourhood of the school.

Lesson IV. A second lesson will be necessary on the contour of the given continent, when the names of the mountain ranges and of the plains may be given, short descriptions of them read, and exercise given in filling them into a blank map from memory.

Position of rivers.Lesson V. The teacher fills into a wall map, blank and uncontoured, the principal rivers, and asks the class to put them in their contoured maps. Many of the children will be found not to have appreciated the meaning of contour lines, but will have drawn a river flowing from the part coloured green to that part coloured brown. One such map will form a good object-lesson, and the children can be brought to see the absurdity of what they have done in representing a river as flowing up a hill.

The properly contoured wall map may then be hung up, and the actual position of the rivers followed. The meaning of watershed will now be apparent, and the fact should be noted that it does not necessarily or even generally correspond with the highest land.

The varying velocity of the river should be drawn from the children from the nature and position of the contour lines, and from that, which parts of its course are being sculptured and in which parts deposition is taking place.

Lesson VI. If a physical course is given, the work of rivers will already have been treated, but certain rivers in the continent should be chosen for special description. From the contour line the children will be able to say for how great a distance the rivers are probably navigable, and the uses of the given rivers as a means of communication and the position of towns on their banks may be discussed.

Coast line.Lesson VII. Coast line. Sufficient knowledge will now have been gained to render possible the appreciation of some of the causes affecting coast line.

When rocks are hard and folded, producing mountains, then they will also give rise to rocky promontories. Clays and sands, which inland allow themselves to be worn into plains and valleys, will here produce bays. Rivers, if still capable of erosion, will produce valleys, which a slight subsidence will convert into narrow gulfs. Finally the accessibility of various points on the coast may be considered, and the position of the chief harbours and ports.

Climate.Lesson VIII. Climate. This lesson may be treated deductively, as the class is already familiar with those phenomena upon which both temperature and rainfall are mainly dependent. The rainfall might be given as an exercise, allowing the use of contoured maps, and the chart of the prevailing winds.

Lesson IX. Distribution of vegetation, pastoral and agricultural districts.

Lesson X. Distribution of minerals, centres of population.

At the end of this course a physical map of some country not already studied by the children should be hung before them, and they should all be asked to write an essay about the country from the facts that they find in the map.

If they can do this, they will have learnt to read a map intelligently, and one of the great ends of a course in geography will have been attained, since they will not only have acquired many new facts, but have also gained the power of searching for and assimilating facts for themselves.

When England is the country being studied, this course must be supplemented by more detailed work on the causes that have determined the positions of cities and towns, and how these causes have operated during the last 2000 years. The children should be shown that British camps were generally on escarpments overlooking the surrounding country. The district round was cultivated, and the inhabitants sought safety in the camp in time of danger. After having been told that the position of some of these “duns” or hill forts is still indicated by such place-names as London, Dunstable and Dundee, the children might be encouraged to suggest other places themselves. The number of camps was greatly increased by the Romans, many of the sites being marked by corruptions of the Latin word castra, as Chester, Colchester and Winchester, and these camps were joined by well-made roads.

Later immigrants formed their centres either in the neighbourhood of these roads, as the Saxons, who often formed villages at a point where the road crossed a stream, as Hertford and Stamford on the Ermine Street, or on sheltered bays and navigable streams, like the Norse and Danes, whose towns and villages, ending in “ley,” “thorpe,” “wic,” are never found except where there is a spring or other natural water supply.

As the various races inhabiting England became amalgamated, and the land was cleared, there was a tendency for towns and villages to spring up over such districts as the Weald, the eastern counties, the central plain and broad river valleys. But there was no great concentration of population save in the south-east, where the neighbourhood of the continent called into existence the Cinque Ports, and where iron smelting was carried on by using the wood of the Wealden forests.

As the Cinque Ports declined, the growth of the navy and the increase of fisheries and trade with the continent increased the size of other ports, and the growing importance of the woollen trade called into existence the large Norfolk towns, which flourished until vexatious guild regulations induced many workers to leave the towns, and form industrial villages as Manchester, Birmingham and Sheffield. Settlements of foreigners, as the French silk weavers at Spitalfields, also formed a nucleus for other industries.

At this point the children might be shown a geological map of England, and also a map in which all those districts with a population of more than 500 to the square mile are coloured red; they would notice that almost all these red patches correspond with coal fields, and be told that the period of beginning to work many of these coal fields, corresponded with that at which America was being opened up; that consequently such ports as Liverpool and Bristol on the west coast became identified with the importing of cotton and sugar, and that towns engaged in these industries sprang up in the neighbourhood of these ports.

The use of steam power in various manufactures still further attracted the cotton and woollen industries to the towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and the working of iron, found in the neighbourhood of coal, accounts for many other centres of population.

Another map may now be shown with the various manufacturing towns marked, and attention called to the physical features which have caused the location of the industry at that spot, as the presence of water power, the possibility of water carriage, the neighbourhood of a port, the presence of hard water used in beer-making, as at Burton.

When the internal growth of England has been considered, a lesson should be given on her commercial supremacy, and the factors which have determined it. England’s position in the centre of the great land hemisphere, the climate, the indented character of the coast, and the mineral wealth, should all be touched upon; nor in doing this should points not geographical be omitted, as the needs of a continually increasing population, the founding of colonies by a part of this surplus population, and, above all, the character of the people, upon which alone the greatness of an empire can rest.

PHYSICS.

By Agatha Leonard, B.Sc. (Lond.).

Position of “physics” in scheme of science teaching.As a preliminary to any remarks on the teaching of physics, it will be well to consider the place which the subject should hold in a general scheme of science teaching. It is not the most suitable subject for junior classes; for young children the sciences of botany and zoology which cultivate the observing faculty, while making less demand upon the reasoning powers, are preferable, but for children of thirteen or fourteen a course of elementary physics affords valuable training and arouses great interest. The subject must, of course, be treated on purely experimental and non-mathematical lines, indeed the chief value of physics at this stage is to teach the children the true use and nature of experiment. They will probably begin with the idea that the use of experiments in a lecture is somewhat the same as that of illustrations in a story-book, to render it more entertaining, though they might be dispensed with, and it takes time to make clear to them that experiment is the very groundwork of all science, the careful “questioning of nature” as to what effects follow upon certain causes. These lessons on physics will lay an excellent foundation for a course on physical geography, which may be taken for the next year’s work.

With girls of fifteen or sixteen either a second course of physics, involving a knowledge of elementary mathematics, may be taken, or chemistry may be begun; while with older classes the choice of a subject will greatly depend on the nature of their previous work, and on the facilities for laboratory work in chemistry or physics. Physiology should not be taken with girls below sixteen; it is of less educational value than either of the subjects above-mentioned, the possibility of personal observation being less, and the whole as taught in schools too often a matter of memory rather than of observation or reasoning; if taught to elder girls it is rather for the practical advantage of the information imparted than for scientific training. Some such scheme of science teaching throughout a school as the following might therefore be suggested:—

Classes of	average	age	10	to	12		Botany or Zoology.
„	„	„	13	„	14		Elementary Physics.
„	„	„	14	„	15		Physical Geography.
„	„	„	15	„	16	-	Chemistry or Physics (Magnetism and Electricity or Heat and Light).

Senior Classes						-	Chemistry or Physics or Botany; Physiology and Hygiene (in addition to one of the above).

The first course of physics (see [end of chapter]) may deal with some of the chief forces of nature (gravity, cohesion, friction); the three states of matter and their properties, under which head would come lessons on atmospheric pressure; elementary ideas of work and energy; and the simple phenomena of sound and heat. The subject of light is better omitted until sufficient knowledge of geometry has been acquired to allow of the laws of reflection and refraction, and the effect of prisms and lenses being rather more adequately dealt with than is possible at this stage. Magnetism and electricity also are better postponed until a later course.

Home-work.No text-book should be given to the children, as their home-work in science should never take the form of learning from a book. Some teachers, to avoid this, let the children take notes, and attempt to reproduce the lesson, others give, either on the blackboard or by dictation, a clear summary which the pupils take down verbatim, but neither plan is satisfactory; the first leads to confusion and inaccuracy, as the children are not old enough to take good notes, while under the second all the work is done by the teacher. I have found it best to end each lesson by setting some questions, framed so as to bring out the chief points of the lesson, to be answered by the children in their own words. The answers must be carefully looked over and criticised at the next lesson, and a methodical account of experiments insisted on, specifying in order the object of the experiment, the apparatus employed, the method adopted, and the results obtained and conclusion drawn. Specially good passages may be read to the class, both as an encouragement to the writer, and as an example to the rest of what can be done by one of themselves; and special censure should be given to careless work, but great care must be taken to avoid confusing mere mistakes with “bad work”; the children should be made to feel that more value is attached to even faulty explanations or descriptions, which show that their minds have worked on the subject, than to the most perfect reproduction of the teacher’s exact words.

Besides the advantage of securing that the pupils and not the teacher shall do the main part of the home-work, the teacher may gain most valuable hints from the errors of the children; they will be found often to arise from some misconception, the removal of which will suggest a quite fresh method of explanation; indeed a teacher will be unlikely to succeed in imparting clear scientific ideas to her pupils who is not on the watch for any indications of what ideas, right or wrong, they really have formed, and able therefore to see their difficulties from their point of view.

Definitions.The only case in which knowledge may perhaps with advantage be cast into words not by the pupil alone but by the teacher, is that of a definition, the construction of a concise and accurate definition being in most cases beyond the child’s unaided powers. Even here, however, the child should do as much as possible of the work herself, only it should be done in class with the teacher’s help instead of at home alone. Thus, suppose the lesson to be on the three states of matter, it is better not to give a definition of each as the starting-point, and then go on to illustrate and explain the same, but to start from the undefined idea which every child possesses of a solid, a liquid, and a gas, and develop from it by degrees the precise definition. Suppose the class to suggest as definitions that substances in the solid state are “hard,” in the liquid state “wet,” and in the gaseous state “invisible,” they will be much interested in having the imperfection of these definitions brought home to them by the help of the liquid metal mercury, which does not “wet” glass or porcelain, and of the visible gas chlorine, and in being led to find out the true distinctions by observing the different behaviour of solids, liquids, and gases respectively when placed in vessels of differing shapes and sizes.

Science teaching not “authoritative”.It must indeed be a fundamental principle throughout these lessons to tell as little as possible; not only should the children produce unaided reports of their work, but the reports should be of what they have themselves observed, not of what they have received on authority. The worthlessness of authoritative science teaching is very generally felt in these days, and some modern teachers are disposed to deny any value at all to science lectures for young children, asserting that only by experimental work carried out by themselves, with as little interference from the teacher as possible, can any really scientific ideas be communicated to them. The value of personal practical work I, of course, fully admit, but I am sure that really “scientific” training may also be given in a “lecture” lesson, by a teacher who knows her subject, and is skilful in the art of questioning, and in making her children tell her what they really do see in an experiment, instead of telling them what they ought to be seeing.

That observation may thus be trained, it is of importance to secure that all experiments shown to young classes should “go”. With older classes the occasional failure of an experiment may be no great matter, they are capable of understanding that the conditions of the experiment were not fulfilled and hence the failure, but with beginners in science it is very undesirable to produce the impression that when Nature is “questioned” she sometimes gives one answer and sometimes another. Experiments that cannot be shown to the children should as a general rule not be described, though when any principle is thoroughly grasped and driven home by experiments performed before the class, there is no harm in mentioning as additional illustrations such phenomena as the falling of the mercury in a barometer tube on being carried up a mountain, or the impossibility of making good tea at high altitudes owing to the lowering of the boiling-point of water; but should the want of apparatus prevent an experiment otherwise suitable for a lecture from being performed it is generally better with beginners to omit all mention of it.

Apparatus for elementary course.For carrying out such a course as that now being considered very simple and inexpensive apparatus is for the most part needed. The only expensive piece really necessary is an air-pump; for the rest, an ordinary pair of scales, a few glass beakers, flasks and funnels, some glass tubing and rods, a little mercury, some wire gauze, some sheet india-rubber, thermometers, a Bunsen burner, and a retort stand or two, are all that is needed, though the addition of such pieces of apparatus as the Magdeburg hemispheres will enable interesting experiments to be shown.

Practical work.As regards the children’s own practical work it is not always possible to arrange in schools for laboratory work for beginners; the time at disposal is often insufficient, and the class too large for a single teacher to give the supervision needed by children so young; but where the class can be taken in sections of not more than ten or twelve pupils for an extra lesson, nothing so greatly rouses the children’s interest and gives so real a grasp of principles as a course of simple experimental work carried out by themselves. Accuracy must be insisted upon from the very beginning; each experiment must have a definite object, and a description of the experiment with the results obtained must always be written out by the child. It is a good plan to give as many experiments as possible in which the result aimed at is quantitative, it is a great satisfaction to a child to obtain a result whose correctness can be gauged, but it is not necessary that the work should be exclusively of this type. The course may begin with the careful measurement of lengths, employing different methods, such as the direct application of the rule to the object, the transference of distances by means of compasses, and obtaining the lengths of curves by means of a string laid along them and afterwards measured; and the children should be taught to make measurements on the metrical system as well as in feet and inches, especially if they already possess any knowledge of decimals. When they can measure as accurately as their scales will allow, the vernier may be introduced, its principle explained by the aid of a large-sized model, and practice given in reading the verniers on barometer scales, etc. Then may follow measurement of the area of rectangles, and, if the children’s mathematical knowledge allow of it, of triangles and other rectilineal figures, then the determination of the volume of rectangular solids from their linear dimensions. The determination of mass may next be taken up, and the pupils taught how to use a balance properly, the C.G.S. unit being again employed as well as the pound; then they may learn how to weigh in water, and how to prove experimentally that the loss of weight of a body weighed in water is equal to the weight of the displaced water; then the volume of a body may be determined by finding the mass and hence the volume of the water it displaces; from this they pass readily to the determination of specific gravities. Experiments on air pressure may follow; the children may learn to read the height of the barometer, and to make for themselves barometric charts showing the variation of the height from day to day; this affords a good opportunity of teaching them to use squared paper. There are also many simple experiments in mechanics, such as the experimental determination of the principle of the lever, the finding of the position of the centre of gravity of a lamina, the finding of the resultant of two parallel forces, etc., very suitable for such a class. Then may come easy experiments and measurements in heat, the reading of various thermometer scales, the filling of a thermometer and its rough graduation, and experiments proving the fact of expansion and of the force exerted by expanding or contracting bodies; measurements of the amount of expansion are too difficult for this stage. Much supervision is required; special care should be taken that children are not left with unoccupied intervals during which they get listless and bored; this requires careful previous planning out of sufficient experiments for the whole class. It will stimulate interest if several children in succession are allowed to make the same measurement, and then to compare their results.

Even where no laboratory class is taken, the teacher can still take opportunities of convincing the children that experiments can be performed by themselves as well as by their class-teacher; they enjoy being called up to perform an experiment in class, and will, if they have any taste for the subject, take an interest in repeating any possible ones at home; they can convince themselves of air-pressure by private experiment with syringes, siphons, and inverted tumblers, or can find centres of gravity, or experiment with sounding strings of various lengths, but of course such desultory experiments, followed by no careful writing out of results, do not give very valuable training in scientific accuracy.

Diagrams.I would insist also on the importance of requiring children from the first to illustrate their work by diagrams; a little time is well spent in criticising these, and in showing how they might be improved. Very neat and serviceable diagrams may be produced even by children with no natural taste for drawing, but they need to be shown how to work, and perhaps to have the lines of a diagram suggested to them at first by a rough blackboard sketch, or it may not occur to them that a few simple lines will show all that is necessary better than a would-be realistic sketch of apparatus, with impossible perspective and smudgy shading.

Course of electricity and magnetism.I pass on now to somewhat higher classes. With pupils whose average age is about fifteen, some one or two of the branches of physics may be taken more in detail. Suppose electricity and magnetism to be chosen, the aim throughout the course should be so to impart elementary ideas that they may be a real help and not a hindrance to any future effort to take in modern views of electricity. To this end attention should from the very first be directed to the electric or magnetic “field” about any charged or magnetised body and not exclusively concentrated upon that body itself, and the pupils should be accustomed to attribute the motions in such fields not to the “action at a distance” of a charge, a pole, or a wire carrying a current, but to the special condition of the medium immediately around the moving body. The idea of a magnetic field is more readily grasped by beginners than the corresponding idea in electrostatics, owing to the ease with which the field may be mapped to the eye by means of iron filings, or by marking down successive positions of a tiny magnetic needle; it seems to me, therefore, well to begin with the study of magnetism, rather than, as is common in text-books, with that of statical electricity. From magnetism the more natural transition is to current electricity, and it will be found a good plan to take the subjects in this order, passing from the magnetic fields which surround permanent steel magnets to those which are found to exist in the neighbourhood of a wire whose ends have been joined to plates of zinc and copper immersed in a vessel of dilute acid. The existence of such fields will be proved by the magnetisation of iron round which the wire is coiled, and by the motion of permanent magnets near which it is held, and the direction of the lines of force will be inferred from the direction of such motion. The existence of the magnetic field established, the term “current of electricity” may be introduced; the children will readily understand that it arose from the idea that it was something flowing through the wire which gave it such strange properties, and that whether this is the case or not, there is a practical convenience in retaining the old terms.

Some of the practical applications of the magnetic effects of currents may now be explained, e.g., the electric telegraph and electric bells, and the use of a galvanometer as a current indicator. Simple experiments on the induction of currents by motion of magnets, or starting and stopping of currents may follow, it being carefully pointed out that the one essential for such induction in a coil is some change in the magnetic field in which it lies. The principle of dynamos readily follows. The heating and decomposing effects of electric currents may next be considered with their practical applications to electric lighting, and electro-plating respectively, and the attention of the children should be directed to the energy appearing as heat or as chemical separation in the two cases. If they have gone through the preliminary course they will know enough of the conservation of energy to look for the disappearance of energy in some other form, and the chemical action in the battery may now be pointed out. Some explanation of “polarisation” and of the need for more complicated forms of battery than the simple voltaic cell may be given.

Lessons on statical electricity will end the course; they may be connected with the preceding lessons by first speaking of the discharge of a Leyden jar, and that between the knobs of an induction machine as instantaneous “currents,” and going on to the state of affairs in the medium between the knobs or coatings when they are not sufficiently near for the discharge to take place; this will be made clear by going back to earliest facts known about electricity and following the ordinary course of electrostatic experiments.

Heat and light.Should “heat and light” be chosen instead of electricity for this year’s course, the mode of treating the subject must depend very much on the mathematical advancement of the pupils. It is probable that their knowledge will not exceed the first two books of Euclid, and algebra to simple equations, and it will therefore not carry them very far in the treatment of geometrical optics; it will enable the laws of reflection to be intelligibly explained, and the position of the image in a plane mirror to be determined (the law of refraction may also be made clear, as the children can easily be made to understand the meaning of the term “sine”), but formulæ connected with mirrors and lenses should be left to a later stage, the changes in size and position of the image formed by a curved mirror or a lens being determined experimentally and not by calculation. A general explanation of the action of optical instruments, telescope, microscope, spectacles, etc., can be given, without exact calculations, and illustrated either by carefully drawn diagrams, or by models with lenses of cardboard and rays represented by strings. The interest of lectures on dispersion and the spectrum is greatly increased if they can be illustrated by lantern experiments. The subject of heat lends itself better to non-mathematical treatment, and is specially good for practical work by the pupils themselves.

Work of senior classes.The work of senior classes, i.e., girls of seventeen or over, depends so much upon circumstances, such as their previous training, their mathematical knowledge, etc., that it is difficult to say much to the point about it, but a word may be added on a very common fault of such classes, a tendency to rely too much on their teacher and their notes of lectures, and to read and think too little for themselves. Independent reading.The practical work, which is an essential for such classes, does much to encourage self-reliance, but besides this they should from time to time be given some reading to do on points which have not been previously made clear in lectures; difficulties met with in the reading should be brought up at the next lesson, when the teacher will either solve them or put the pupil in the way of doing so for herself. This kind of work takes time, and is therefore apt to be crowded out from a full time-table, but it is worth an effort to find a place for it.

LIST OF SOME BOOKS USEFUL FOR TEACHERS.

I. Practical Physics.

For Beginners—

Inductive Physical Science. F. H. Bailey. Heath & Co., Boston, U.S.A.

Practical Lessons in Physical Measurement. A. Earl. Macmillan. 5/-.

Exercise Book of Elementary Practical Physics. Arranged according to Head Masters’ Association Syllabus. R. A. Gregory. Macmillan.

For rather older Classes—

Elementary Physics. Henderson. Longmans, Green & Co.

Elementary Practical Physics. W. Watson. Longmans, Green & Co.

Intermediate Course of Practical Physics. Schuster & Lees. Macmillan.

For Senior Classes—

Practical Physics. Stewart & Gee. Macmillan.

Practical Physics. Glazebrook & Shaw. Longmans, Green & Co. 7/6.

II. Theoretical Physics.

Primer of Physics. Balfour Stewart. Macmillan. 1/-. (May suggest a course for beginners.)

Heat. H. G. Madan. Longmans. 9/-. (A good course for junior classes.)

Elementary Treatise on Heat. Garnett. Deighton, Bell & Co. 4/6. (A good course for rather more advanced students.)

Light. A course on Experimental Optics. Lewis Wright. Macmillan. (Suggests good experiments, especially with lantern.)

Elementary Lessons in Electricity and Magnetism. S. P. Thompson. Macmillan.

For Senior Classes—

Theory of Light. Preston. Macmillan. 15/—.

Theory of Heat. Preston. Macmillan. 17/—.

Electricity and Magnetism. Foster & Atkinson. (Based on Joubert.) Longmans, Green & Co. 7/6.

Theory of Heat. Clerk Maxwell. Longmans, Green & Co. 4/6.

COURSE OF ELEMENTARY PHYSICS.

Definition of Physics.

Distinction between physical and chemical phenomena.—Iron heated, Iron rusted. Candle melted, Candle burnt, etc., etc.

Motion. Force. Illustrations of familiar forces.—Muscular force. Force of stretched spring, etc., etc.

Consideration of some particular forces.—Gravity. Friction. Cohesion.

Gravity.—Distinction between body’s weight and mass. Weight is the earth’s pull upon it. Might be different while body unaltered. Centre of gravity. Experimental determination for laminæ of various shapes. Stable, unstable and neutral equilibrium dependent on position of centre of gravity. Everyday illustrations. Stick balanced on finger, etc.

Friction.—Everyday instances. Effect if it were removed.

Cohesion.—Three states of matter. Solids. Liquids. Gases. Essential difference between them. Experiments showing retention of size and shape by solids, of size by liquids, of neither by gases.

Pressure of Liquids—

Transmitted in all directions. Effect of boring hole in side of vessel containing a liquid.

Pressure increases with depth.—Experiment. Lower into jar of water cylinder closed at bottom by glass disc, the pressure of the water supports the disc. Pour water into cylinder till bottom falls, the lower the cylinder is sunk, the more water is required for this.

Liquids find their level.—Experiment with communicating vessels of different sizes. Water level, spirit level. Water from reservoirs rising to tops of houses. Exception in case of very narrow tubes. Capillarity.

Floating power, or buoyancy of liquids.—Experiments on weight of water displaced by bodies immersed and by floating bodies. Principle of Archimedes.

Specific gravity.—Definition. Experimental determination (1) by catching and weighing displaced water; (2) by loss of weight in water.

Pressure of Air—

Experiments showing existence of atmospheric pressure [e.g., inverted jar of water, experiments with air-pump, suckers].

Barometer.—Construct by filling long tube with mercury. Show by passing barometer tube through cork of receiver that mercury falls when air withdrawn from above mercury in cistern, rises if air is let in.

Action of syringes. Pumps. Construction and working of air-pump.

Heat—

Temperature or hotness.—Sensation not reliable guide.

Expansion.—Experiments to show in solids, liquids, gases. A few exceptions to law of expansion, e.g., water near freezing-point, ice forms on top of water. Force of expansion.

Thermometers.—Construction and graduation.

Fusion.—Temperature remains constant during fusion. Latent heat.

Evaporation and boiling.—Latent heat of vaporisation.

Boiling point depends on pressure.—Experiment of boiling water under air-pump.

Conduction.

Convection.—Heating of water in kettle; heating of houses by hot water.

Sound—

Sounding bodies always in vibration.—Bells, tuning-forks, metal plates (vibrations shown by means of sand), strings, etc.

Mode of propagation. Illustrations. Air or other medium necessary for transmission; no sound through vacuum.

Sounds differ in loudness, pitch, quality.

Physical cause of loudness.—Violence of vibration.

Physical cause of pitch.—Rapidity of vibration. Siren, or perforated disc.

Strings.—Note given depends on length, thickness, tension and material. Experiments with monochord. Illustrate by violin strings.

Harmonics.—Subdivision of strings. Experiment with riders on string.

Physical cause of “quality”.—Intermixture of other notes with fundamental.

Resonance.—Experiments with tubes of air and tuning-forks. Organ pipes.

Velocity of sound.—How first determined. Calculate distance of thunderstorm.

Reflection.—Echoes.

Work and Energy—

Work done when force overcome or yielded to through any distance.

Gravity does work when body falls.—Work done against gravity in lifting a body. Foot-pound, unit of work.

A body which has power to do work has “energy”.—May have in consequence of motion, or of position, or of being heated, etc., etc.

Conservation of energy.—Transformation of energy.

THE TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY.

By Clare de Brereton Evans, D.Sc. (Lond.).

The committee appointed by the British Association in 1889 to inquire into the “Present Methods of Teaching Chemistry,” gave it as their opinion that “the high educational value of instruction in physical science has never been exhibited to its full advantage in most of our educational institutions,” and it will be admitted by the majority of those who interest themselves in the teaching of chemistry in girls’ schools that in spite of the growing tendency towards more rational methods of imparting the subject, the progress made in this direction during the last eight years has not been great enough to warrant any change in the above dictum.

After all that has been said and written about the difference between instruction and education, it should be unnecessary to reiterate that the object of our schools is not so much to develop the memories of the children as their capabilities, their powers of reasoning and doing, and although the attainment of this object is brought about chiefly no doubt by the method of teaching, it is also dependent upon the subject taught.

Elementary physical science as a basis for chemistry teaching.Natural science is specially valuable in calling into action at once the logical and practical faculties, training simultaneously the mind, the eye and the hand; but it is necessary in order to avoid teaching the subject dogmatically to make the course progressive—to preface lessons in chemistry, for example, by a preliminary ground-work of physics sufficient to render the chemistry intelligible. Elementary physics is the logical sequence of arithmetic, and may be taken up with the greatest advantage as soon as the four simple rules of arithmetic have been mastered; moreover the practical application of these rules afforded by simple measurements of length, area and volume is of immense use, not only because each pupil verifies for herself in this way the rules she has learnt to apply on paper, but also because arithmetic is thus shown to be of practical and not merely theoretical value. If children were taught from the beginning to make practical use of their arithmetic one of the greatest difficulties with which the science teacher has to contend later on would be obviated, that namely of explaining the application of mathematics to the solution of simple chemical and physical problems.

Chemistry again is the logical outcome of physics, and should not be attempted, because it cannot possibly be understood, until the fundamental principles of physics have been mastered. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that chemistry should be preceded by elementary physics; the sequence, practical arithmetic, elementary physics, chemistry, being the only one which affords a satisfactory progressive scientific course suitable for being carried on throughout a school starting where the object-lessons of the kindergarten end; then by the time examination classes are reached there need be left none of those gaps in the understanding of the pupils, gaps with regard to elementary principles, which are so usual as to be looked for as a matter of course by the chemistry teacher, and which she is obliged to span here and there by dogmatic assertions on which rests as a rule all the physico-chemical knowledge required of the examination student. Educational advantages of a progressive chemistry course.A well-arranged course of this kind, moreover, possesses the great advantage over others, botany or geology for example, that it may be made free from technical language, a point of considerable importance, not only because the tax upon the memories of the children is thus lightened, but because they are at liberty to express their observations in their own words. It has been truly said that “strange words are non-conductors,” and it is unreasonable to suppose that clear ideas on any subject may be imparted in a language which is only partially intelligible.

Need for early training in science.It is necessary of course to begin early if a sound basis of physics is to be laid for the teaching of chemistry; the elementary physics lessons should in fact be made to continue the work of the kindergarten without any break, thus carrying out the aim of natural science teaching, which should be to foster the powers of observation and research which almost all young children possess to a very high degree; nor are these the only faculties which benefit, since physical science is specially fitted also to develop independence of thought, agility of mind and hand and soundness of judgment; the simplest experiment may be varied in a hundred ways to produce the same result, and it is this possibility of variation which gives the individual pupil so much opportunity for the exercise of originality, which cultivates quickness of observation and encourages so largely the valuable quality of self-reliance.

“Practical” teaching.It is evident that a course of lectures unaccompanied by laboratory work gives no scope for the educational possibilities of technical subjects such as those with which we are dealing; the teaching must be made “practical”. It is not sufficient that the teacher should perform a number of illustrative experiments at her lectures, for it is rare to find a child capable of grasping the meaning of such illustrations; it is not even sufficient that the experiments shown by the lecturer should be repeated subsequently by the pupils themselves; this is no doubt good as far as it goes, for it breeds familiarity with apparatus and gives practice in manipulation, but that is all; as to educating the particular faculties which science is specially adapted to educate it is useless, for the results of the experiments being already known the reasoning powers are not required; on the contrary the performance of the experiment on the lecture-table has led to the belief that there is one stereotyped method of doing it, and consequently the child’s memory alone is exercised in trying to remember every detail of the apparatus used and the method of carrying it out.

For success in examinations it is now necessary to have a certain amount of practical knowledge of chemistry, and examination classes are therefore given some practical training, but this reform still remains to be extended universally to the junior classes, which need even more than the senior ones that the teaching should be objective: a child may learn and repeat correctly a dozen times that water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen, and the thirteenth time she will assure you that its constituents are oxygen and nitrogen; but let her make the gases for herself, test them and get to know them as individuals, and mistakes of this kind will become impossible.

A further reason for giving practical instruction to juniors is that examination students are generally pressed for time, being on this account often obliged to do the necessary laboratory work out of school hours; moreover they find it difficult as it is of a kind to which they are unaccustomed. It would obviously be a great advantage to train the children from the beginning in the use of apparatus during the years when such work is a recreation and a real delight to them.

A central idea in science teaching.There is one other point to be noticed. The science course may be begun early and continued without intermission throughout the school career, the teaching being of a sufficiently “practical” character, but the result will not be a success unless there is a central idea running through it. From the very beginning the experiments must be chosen in illustration and explanation of the fundamental physical laws which may thus be made perfectly familiar to the pupils. It is necessary, however, that these experiments should be of the simplest character; to quote the words of the British Association report above referred to, “the lessons ought to have reference to subjects which can be readily understood by children, and illustrations should be selected from objects and operations that are familiar to them in everyday life”.

Broad principles recommended.Briefly then, I would recommend that the following broad principles should be adopted with pre-examination classes:—

(1) Elementary physical training to be made continuous with kindergarten teaching.(1) The course of elementary physical science which is then necessary foundation for a sound knowledge of chemistry should be made continuous with the object-lessons of the kindergarten, and should form a progressive course extending over three or four years, passing imperceptibly into elementary chemistry.

(2) The elementary course to be entirely “practical”.(2) This course should be of an entirely practical character and should be carried out in a room very simply equipped for the purpose. No text-books should be allowed and no notes dictated by the teacher, but each pupil should subsequently to the lesson write out in her own words an account of her own experiments, of which she is encouraged to take notes at the time of doing them.

Advantage of occasional lectures.Although all formal lessons on the simple subjects of investigation serve only to prejudice the minds of the children, lectures given at rare intervals on kindred subjects and profusely illustrated serve as a healthy stimulus to the youthful appetite for experiment and research.

(3) Choice of experiments.(3) The practical course should be so chosen that each experiment illustrates in the simplest possible manner some fundamental principle or “law” of nature. It is precisely here that a teacher has the opportunity of educating the logical faculties of the pupils, each of whom is required to solve independently the simple problem set before her at the lesson and is thus placed in a position to deduce for herself from her own experiment the principle involved. The children are in fact placed, as Dr. Armstrong recommends, “in the attitude of discoverers,” and it is astonishing how soon they learn to become independent in their methods of attacking new problems if their minds are not prejudiced by preconceived ideas of the results to be expected.

(4) Size of classes.(4) As regards the size of the classes and the time to be allowed for each, the Committee of the British Association recommends that “a teacher should not be required to give practical instruction to more than from fifteen to twenty pupils at one time, although the classes at lectures and demonstrations might be somewhat larger”. For the course indicated below one hour a week may be made sufficient at first, but later on an hour and a half should be allowed for each practical class.

(5) Accommodation.(5) As to accommodation, it is quite possible, at any rate at first, to use an ordinary class-room, but as environment no doubt does exercise a certain influence the use of a special room very simply equipped with long tables supplied with water and gas is strongly advised.[26]

[26] Full details of fittings and of the very simple and inexpensive apparatus required are given in the syllabus issued by the Incorporated Association of Head Masters, which can be obtained at the “Educational Supply Association,” 42 Holborn Viaduct.

The above recommendations are meant to apply to all classes up to the time when the needs of public examinations demand a special course; this must necessarily be given by means of set lectures, as it could not otherwise be covered in the limited time which is generally allotted to the subject; they are more or less in accordance with those drawn up by Dr. Armstrong for the Committee of the British Association of which mention has been made, and which were embodied in the Syllabus of Physics and Chemistry issued by the Incorporated Association of Head Masters in 1895; since this date they have been successfully carried out in various boys’ schools. Owing to the enterprise of Miss L. E. Walter a similar course was introduced at an even earlier date into the Central Foundation School for Girls, where it is now in operation. Appended is a very brief outline of the course there pursued, together with a typical set of lessons in chemistry.

Outline of a science course now in operation.On leaving the kindergarten the science teaching is confined to what is really practical arithmetic and geometry, elementary measurements being performed by the most ordinary methods. The children are thus accustomed to the use of simple apparatus such as pipettes, burettes, etc., also to the use of the balance, the simple numerical calculations involved in weighing and measuring being performed in both the English and decimal systems, which are thus made quite familiar.

The following example, quoted from Miss Walter’s paper,[27] gives a clear idea of the sort of introductory teaching needed. This lesson, although of the simplest character, had for its object to show the necessity for, and to choose a unit of length. This is how it was done: “I gave each girl but one a piece of string, all the pieces being the same length; the one odd girl I kept by me, and we had a ball of string. I asked the children to tell me how long their pieces were so that I could cut a similar piece. Naturally they began by guessing—a yard, half a yard; but as I had no yardstick, I feigned ignorance of what a yard was. Soon one put the string along her slate and expressed the length as a slate and three-quarters. Every one else followed suit.... After each of the sensible measurements which they made ... I did the same to my small comrade as they had done to themselves and cut off a piece of string. Then they all watched with great interest to see if my piece really did come like theirs.... This lesson may not sound very exciting, but during the whole time each of those children was alive, each was thoroughly interested in what she was doing.”

[27] “The Teaching of Science in Girls’ Schools,” by L. Edna Walter, B.Sc., reprinted from Education, Secondary and Technical.

The preliminary course consists in its earlier stages of exercises in the measurement of length, area and volume with the use of the balance; this is followed by experiments on density, and subsequently some work on heat is done, a simple thermometer and barometer being made and graduated by each girl, who is encouraged to use them to record the weather by means of curves showing variations of temperature and pressure. It may have been completed by girls of about fourteen, who will then be quite prepared to begin chemistry, having by that time gained a very good idea of how to apply their arithmetic as well as their knowledge of the fundamental physical principles to the solution of practical problems.

It is important to point out that the system here advocated inverts the usual order of teaching chemistry. This subject is divided into “pure” and “physical,” and it is usual at the present time to begin by teaching “pure” chemistry, that is to say, the preparations and properties of a number of the commoner elements and compounds, this part being considered easier than “physical” chemistry, which however ought logically to precede it, since it treats of the fundamental laws upon which “pure” chemistry depends.

A knowledge of simple physical chemistry is now required for all chemistry examinations, candidates for which are expected to have a working acquaintance with simple physical apparatus, to be familiar with the barometer and thermometer, the effects of heat on solids, liquids and gases, density and specific heat, etc., etc.; they are liable moreover to be asked to solve any simple problems on measurement. Now by giving precedence to “physical” chemistry, all this is done and done thoroughly before examinations are thought of, so that what is generally regarded by pupils at the present time as the most difficult portion of their subject is made by this means its A B C, and the time spent upon actual examination work can be considerably curtailed.

“Pure” chemistry is introduced by the study of the methods of testing all kinds of substances so as to be able to classify them roughly as mineral or vegetable, organic or inorganic, etc. The chemistry course suggested by Dr. Armstrong and adopted by the Incorporated Association of Head Masters is strongly to be recommended, as it is drawn up particularly with a view to imparting “not only information but chiefly a knowledge of method”. It opens with “studies of the effect of heat on things in general; of their behaviour when burnt,” and goes on to the investigation of such familiar things as air and nitrogen, combustion and oxygen, hydrogen and water. Formulæ and equations are rigidly excluded, the aim being to give a broad introduction to the subject; on the other hand quantitative experiments form a much larger part of the curriculum than is usually the case, the previous training in physical methods having prepared the way for teaching chemistry in a more exact manner than is generally possible with beginners.

A girl who has gone through the scientific training outlined in the preceding pages will possess an elementary knowledge of many subjects; she will find little difficulty in mastering the information required for the London Matriculation or any other preliminary examination in physical science, the greater portion of the ground both in physics and chemistry having already been covered during the preliminary course indicated. It is certain that students who have undergone such a systematic education without hurry and without pressure, and with opportunities for reasoning out each step for themselves, will be in a condition to derive the maximum of benefit from subsequent instruction not only in chemistry but in all other branches of knowledge.

Typical Lessons in Chemistry.

At the beginning of the lesson the problem to be solved is announced by the teacher, who invites suggestions as to how it should be attacked. A scheme of work is thus prepared which is carried into practice by the pupils; every detail of manipulation is performed by the girls themselves, who select their own apparatus, bend their own tubing, etc., referring only occasionally to the teacher for help. The scheme is elaborated as the investigation proceeds so as to form a piece of consecutive reasoning which may extend over a series of lessons.

Problem. To discover the constitution of chalk.

Typical lesson.Being familiar with simple methods of testing unknown substances, heat and the action of acid are at once suggested by the pupils as a means of investigation, and a preliminary examination is made showing that heat does alter chalk in some way, whereas the addition of acid causes the liberation of a gas. The next step is to find out whether the chalk loses or gains anything by being heated; also to determine the nature of the gas given off under the influence of acid.

Suggestions are again received from the girls, who are led to decide that the first part of the question may be answered by submitting a weighed quantity of chalk to a moderately high temperature, weighing at intervals until the weight, if it changes at all, again becomes constant.

They proceed therefore to weigh their empty crucibles with the usual precautions and then to reweigh them after having put in some dry chalk. The numbers obtained are carefully entered in the laboratory note-book with which each girl is provided. The crucibles are then placed in a “muffle” furnace, which the pupils are taught to manage for themselves, and are only withdrawn at the end of the lesson and placed in desiccators to be reweighed at the beginning of the next lesson, when they will be again submitted to the same treatment until the weight is constant.

While the crucibles are being heated preparations are made for finding out the action of acid on chalk; the pupils are led to suggest a simple form of apparatus for measuring the volume and weight of the gas given off, and hence for determining its density. By the time this is done the hour and a half allowed for the lesson will probably have expired. At the next lesson, after a preliminary questioning as to what each pupil has done and is going to do, the apparatus decided upon at the previous lesson is carefully prepared; subsequently the actual experiments to determine the quantity of gas given off are performed and its density determined, and finally it is shown that the gas given off from chalk under the action of heat is identical with that released by acid, chalk being composed of this gas and the residue left after heating it in a muffle furnace until the weight is constant.

It will be seen that this work involves a considerable amount of weighing and calculation, but this is rendered easy by the previous grounding in elementary physics, and a series of experiments such as that described may be carried out intelligently by any properly trained class of girls.