7. All that is taught should be true. It is not necessary to attempt to exhaust a subject, nor to attempt to teach minute details regarding it to the pupils in our schools, but it is necessary that every statement given to the pupil to be learned and remembered should contain no element of falsehood.
The student in mathematics experiences a feeling of growing strength and power when he finds, in algebra, that the formula he used in arithmetic in extracting a square root has grown in importance by leading indirectly to a theorem of which it is only one particular case--a theorem with a more definite proof, and a larger capability for use than he had thought possible. When he finds a still simpler proof for the binomial theorem in his study of the calculus, his feeling of increasing power and the desire for still greater results deepens and intensifies. Were he to find, on the contrary, that from a false notion of the means to be used in making a thing simple, his teacher in arithmetic had taught him what is false, we should approve his feeling of disgust and disappointment. Early impressions are the most lasting, and the hardest part of school work for the teacher is the unteaching of false ideas, and the correcting of imperfectly formed and partially understood ideas. I took a case from mathematics, the exact science, to illustrate this point. But I must not neglect to notice the difference between that subject and physical science. The latter consists of theories, hypotheses, and so-called laws, supported by observed facts. The facts remain, but time has overthrown many of the hypotheses and theories, and it will doubtless overthrow more and give us something better and truer in their place. While a careful distinction between what is known and what is believed is necessary, I should always class the teaching of accepted theories and hypotheses with the teaching of the true.
But teachers, with more of imagination than good sense, teach distinctions which do not exist, generalizations which do not generalize, and do incalculable mischief by so doing.
8. Experimental work should be thoroughly honest as to conditions and results. If an experiment is not the success you expected it would be, say so honestly, and if you know why, explain it. The pupil should be taught to know just what is, theory or expectation to the contrary notwithstanding. Discoveries in physical science have often originated in a search for the reason for some unexpected thing.
The relation of the study of science to books on science should be considered. For the work done with pupils before they are given books to use for themselves, any attempt to follow a text book is to be deplored. The study of the properties of matter, for instance, would be a fearful and wonderful thing to set a class of little ones at as a beginning in scientific work. Just what matter, and force, and molecules, and atoms are may be well enough for the student who is old enough to begin to use a book, but they would be but dry husks to a younger child. Many of the careful classifications and analyses of topics in text books had far better be used as summaries than in any other way; and a definition is better when the pupil knows it is true than when he is about to find out whether it is or not.
An ideal course in science would be one in which nothing should be learned but that found out by the observation of the pupil himself under the guidance of the teacher, necessary terms being given, but only when the thing to be named had been considered, and the mind demanded the term because of a felt need. Practically such a method is impossible in its fullest sense, but a closer approach to it will be an advantage.
Among the numerous good results which will follow the study of physical science are the following:
1. The cultivation of all the faculties of the child in a natural order, thus making him grow into a ready, quick, and observing man. Education in schools is too often shaped so as to repress instead of cultivate the instinctive desire for the knowledge of things which is found in every child.
2. The mechanical skill which comes from the preparation and use of apparatus.
3. The ability to follow directions.