< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu
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EDITOR'S TABLE.

mental needs of children, and the adaptation of objective studies to their early cultivation. They would therefore begin with physics and chemistry when boys and girls are old enough to commence simple experimenting; that is, at perhaps the age of twelve or thirteen. Mr. Wyles, of Allesley Park College, claims to have had the best success with chemical and physical experiments and the use of the microscope, and he embodies his views and results in the following instructive passage:

"I believe that such knowledge as I have indicated may be profitably given even to very young boys. They learn thereby to distinguish the precise features and qualities of natural objects, and the conditions of ordinary phenomena; and such teaching undoubtedly exercises in the best way the observing powers, which develop much earlier than the reflective faculty. I am inclined to say that teaching elementary science to boys from ten to thirteen is a greater success than teaching grammar; i. e., that the principles involved are more easily seen, excite more interest, and become therefore a better mental discipline. We rarely have boys come to us with any knowledge of science, and, when they have, it has generally been acquired from lectures, and is worthless as a means of education. We do not lecture, but do real hard class-work, and take periodical examinations on this work, giving it equal value in these and our grade examinations with language and mathematics. We have no reason to believe that this work interferes with or deteriorates the work in language and mathematics, in which subjects we find our boys quite equal, and, except in very rare cases, I may say, superior to incomers of like power, and who have had no science-teaching.
"The great number of men eminent for their vast scientific attainments, who have achieved this eminence in spite of our nonscientific, I may almost say anti-scientific system of education, clearly indicates that many of us have an inherent scientific power or genius surpassing our power in any other direction. I plead for such that they have the same chance of being floated on their scientific voyage as the linguist and the mathematician have on theirs: and I have seen no satisfactory plea why they should not. Value for value, I claim for the science-man a higher status in our present social life than is due to either linguist or mathematician.
"My experience as a schoolmaster has revealed to me many cases where the talent for language or mathematics has been so low that the education effected by these has been of the meanest kind; or where the incessant failure has produced a stolid ignorance, a kind of mental paralysis, most disheartening to all concerned. Such cases have come into my hands, and I have seen intelligence rekindled, and mental power aroused, by simple science-teaching, and the power even for other subjects enhanced thereby."

But there are others who insist that scientific studies may and should begin much earlier, and their view must be adopted before society can ever reach the solid and lasting advantages which are to be gained by scientific education. It is the teachers of natural history that favor this view, maintaining that the collection, observation, and comparison of plants, insects, shells, etc., may be made highly instructive at a period when chemical and physical experiments may not be undertaken. The Rev. George Henslow takes this decided position, and, in replying to Mr. Wilson, of Rugby, in Nature, of April 20th, he has the following remarks:

"Before twelve, I agree with Mr. Wilson, that practical chemistry should not begin. But, Mr. Wilson says, 'Science should be introduced into a school, beginning at the top and going downward gradually to a point which will be indicated by experience.' Surely this is inverting a fundamental principle of education, and we may ask, Why should science be thus singled out? Why not begin at the top with Latin and arithmetic and work downward? Science, however, has its 'elements' and its 'advanced' stages, like everything else. The soundest method seems to me to select the science for each age or capacity of pupils, and for the teacher himself to adapt the branch selected to them. Let him begin with botany—with children of the age of six, if he pleases—and by using the schedule he will find it almost self-adapting to the child's powers. Physical geography might, come next, with pupils from eight to twelve; then the experimental sciences or geology from twelve upward. The observing of the
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