"It is not intended that the teaching should be limited, either to the experiments here given or to the order in which the different subjects are stated. It is hoped that these experiments will be sufficient to indicate the lines on which the teaching should be based, and to assist the teacher in inventing others."

It would be a great misfortune if the teaching became in any way stereotyped, and of this there is always a danger in following a fairly detailed syllabus. There are splendid opportunities, opportunities of which many workers on these lines have already availed themselves for continual research on the part of the teacher in devising other simple and ingenious experiments in illustration of the various points. The great object throughout the course is to let the pupil, as far as possible, find out things for himself, make his own observations, and draw his own conclusions, following on from step to step in a logical order.

Of the value of physical science for the purpose of this training there can be no possible doubt. Writers on education are practically unanimously in favour of it. Mr Holman, in An Introduction to Education, says:

"Physical science subjects are not only of high disciplinary value from the nutritive point of view, but also from the point of view of pure exercise. For in dealing with pure, as opposed to practical and applied science, we have for the most part to do chiefly with the rational elements of experience--with general truths and principles. The mind is constantly exercised in that which is for mind only-the meaning or interpretation of experiences. And the discipline thus obtained is particularly valuable, because it is in such work that the mind gains the power and habit of fully and accurately receiving and responding to stimuli, of judging relations rightly, and of making those universal judgments about phenomena which, when properly expressed, we call laws or principles."

The child as far as possible is to become a discoverer; he

is to have what Pestalozzi called "the sacred right of discovery.” We all know what a delight it is to a child to discover how to do things, and what an intense fascination there is in working out problems. The boy to whom the learning of definitions and rules is intolerably irksome, becomes interested directly there is something to work out, something to discover, using these definitions and rules as data. Do not we all remember how we slaved away at the propositions of Euclid, longing for the end of the lesson, but how we would willingly stay up half the night trying to work out interesting problems on them? This is one of the most powerful arguments in favour of this method of science teaching, that under proper conditions the teachers can awaken the greatest interest in the pupil by its means, and this interest should be maintained at all costs. Without it the best teaching is of little avail. The child must do its own part, you cannot do it for him. Teaching a child who is uninterested is like forcing food down the throat of an invalid who has no appetite. The food will do no good, because there will not be the necessary flow of secretions and other adjuncts to the successful carrying on of the digestive processes. This simile may be carried still further. In the case of people suffering from chronic dyspepsia there are certain preparations equivalent to the digestive secretions which are added to the food in order to digest or partly digest it outside the body, and these people are kept alive who otherwise would, and probably ought to, die. The result is, however, that if these processes are carried on for any length of time the secreting glands, having no work to do, degenerate and become functionless.

It is just the same in educational processes: the child must digest the food himself, it must not be digested for him by the teacher. As sure as children are nourished on peptonised information, the powers which ought to be developed and strengthened by its means will degenerate and become functionless, the child will lose all power of originating, all

power of thinking for himself. He will become an automaton instead of a living organism. Of course, it would be foolish to dogmatise as to how much help should be given to children. It depends upon the part of the subject, the amount of time that can be obtained for practical work, the nature of the equipment, and many other things. All that can be asked is to let the child do as much as possible for himself; you want to make him intelligent, capable and resourceful, and this can only be done by suitable mental training. This point is very well put by Froebel in speaking of the training of young children. He says:

"Do not send it away ungently, do not drive it from you; be not impatient of its questions, its continual questioning: with every cross repelling word you destroy a bud, a shoot of its life-tree. But do not answer in words, where it can answer itself without your word. As soon as, and as far as, they have strength and experience, give them the conditions of the question, and let them make out the answer from their own knowledge."

Of course, to carry out this effectively you must have small classes. With large classes it is such a terrible temptation to give the information instead of putting the child in the way of getting it for himself; it is so much less trouble.

In a charming book, published at the beginning of this century, and now, unfortunately, out of print, by Maria and R. L. Edgeworth, on Practical Education, some very interesting instances are given of the facility with which children investigate problems for themselves if properly trained. Here is a delightful example :

He

"A boy of nine finds a kind of rainbow on the floor. calls his sister to see, and wonders how it came there. The sun shines brightly through the window. The boy moves several things upon which the light falls, saying, 'This is not it. Nor this.' At last, when he moves a tumbler of water, the rainbow vanishes. There are some violets in the tumbler, which he

thinks may explain the colours on the floor. But when the violets are removed the colours remain. Then he thinks it may be the water. He empties the glass. The colours remain, but they are fainter. This leads him to suppose that the water and the glass together make the rainbow. 'But,' he adds, 'there is no glass in the sky, yet there is a rainbow, so that I think the water alone would do, if we could but hold it together without the glass.' He then pours the water slowly out of the tumbler into a basin, which he places in the sunlight, and sees the colours on the floor twinkling behind the water as it falls."

How easy it is to lead children on in this way, by making use of their natural activities. What sources of information can be imparted to the child as a result of its own reasonings! And, moreover, the child makes such information for ever its own, because it forms part of a chain, and is connected so indissolubly with its previous experiences. And what a sure basis such information becomes for future reasonings! Thus, step by step, the intelligence develops, information is assimilated, the child becomes stronger and stronger, and all along the line it is making use of its natural mental energy. Pestalozzi says:

"I believe that the first development of thought in the child is very much disturbed by a wordy system of teaching, which is not adapted either to his faculties or the circumstances of his life. According to my experience, success depends upon whether what is taught to children commends itself to them as true through being closely connected with their own personal observation and experience." And again:

"So the sole instruction given to the human being consists merely in the art of giving a helping hand to this natural tendency towards its proper development; and this art consists essentially in the means of putting the child's impressions in connexion and harmony with the precise degree of development the child has reached. There must be then in the impressions to be given him by instruction, a regular grada

tion; and the beginning and the progress of his various knowledges must exactly correspond with the beginning and increase in his powers as they are developed."

Assimilated information is as valuable as undigested, unconnected information is deleterious. Rousseau was never tired of insisting upon the importance of this. "When the understanding," he says, "makes things its own before they are committed to memory, whatever it afterwards draws forth belongs to it; but if the memory is burdened with what the understanding knows nothing about, we are in danger of bringing from it things which the understanding declines to acknowledge.'

These "knowledge lumps," as Thring called them, are of no real value to the boy or girl, and directly the memory alone has to bear the burden with no reference whatever to the reasoning faculty the result is disastrous, as is shown by the remarkable answers too often obtained in examinations.

If the rational teaching of science is to be followed in schools, it means, of course, more work, though intensely interesting work, for the teacher.

Professor Miall said recently, at a conference of teachers: "Many a teacher has said to me I cannot inquire: I never made an inquiry in my life. Moreover, I have not time to inquire. As soon as I get out of school I have papers to mark, and, as soon as my papers are marked, I must enjoy myself and recreate my mind.' The only answer that one can make is, If that is really your condition, if it is impossible for you yourself to inquire, if you never do inquire, you are not fit to teach. Your lamp has gone out.""

So much, then, for the teaching of elementary experimental science. The same principles apply to the teaching of botany in schools. It should be used as an instrument of education rather than for purposes of information. There are great possibilities in botany, but probably there is no subject which is so badly taught. I have had some melancholy experiences in