Reports of the Bureau of Education, Part II [pp. 215-218]

Educational Reports.
exact knowledge afterwards in any subject;
in fact, the system produces a disinclination
to take up any subject with a view of accu rate knowledge.'" A committee of the Brit ish Association, consisting of eminent phys icists, reported: "No very desirable results
can be looked for from the general intro duction of physics into school teaching, un less those who undertake to teach it have
themselves made it the subject of serious
and continued study." In the London
"Journal of Education," Mr. R. E. Steele
writes, taking it for granted that a special
"science master" must be employed, as spe cial teachers of music or drawing are with us.
Yet, in spite of all this timidity as to the
teaching that can be had, there is an all but
unanimous agreement that if proper teaching
were possible, and if time could be had, physics in high schools would be a very good
thing, or even in primary schools. That
soiie science is desirable, from the very lowest schools, is generally conceded; whether
physics or something else is a different question. The child should be taught to observe
nature and know her ways, and reason for
himself about them. Botany, as the best
classified of the sciences, and the one that
deals with the prettiest objects, is the one
most readily thought of for the purpose.
Several scientific men, however, object to it
that it is purely classificatory, and does not
teach the child the impulse of experiment;
he learns to observe, but not to interrogate
nature. Others set down the classificatory as
the oinly science a child can advantageously
study. Reverend J. M. Wilson, of Clifton College, pronounces both to be right botany
as the teacher of observation, physics as the
teacher of experiment.
Probably this last judgment is the true one,
and physics and botany, properly taught,
should lay the foundations for the study of nature in the child's mind; but this is not to our
present point, which is to call attention to the
injustice done the conservatives as to scientific education, in supposing them to be opposed to it. As a general thing, they believe in
it as strongly as does any one, but hold a
higher standard than do others as to what
does constitute proper scientific education,
and despair of its being at present practica ble. Their ground is simply that new
things would better not be taught at all than
made a pretense of. And that the majority
of primary teachers could do no more than
make a pretense of physics, is certain: on the
strength of an elementary course in it them selves, they would feel competent to under take to wake in children the mental powers that
this profound mental science is to train. It is
against this sort of bungling that the conserv atives protest. Nothing ought to be taught
to a child by a person who is not himself
more than a primary pupil in it. The young
girls who undertake to teach reading, writing,
and elementary arithmetic to little children
know these things. They know them as
well as any college professor does. More over, they are things which the child is to
actually learn - not merely to learn a few
illustrations of, but to make himself absolute
master of, so that the boy of fourteen may
know them as well as the wisest scholar.
Therefore, the understanding from the first
is, that in taking hold of these things, business is meant, and therefore in these things
there is safety.
The other point that must impress the
reader of this report is, that in England the
difficulty of improper teaching is at once so
much better realized, and so much less insuperable; and this simply because, through
Royal and other commissions, University
local examinations, and many other such
agencies, a subject of this sort receives the
careful and interested consideration, not
only of teachers, but of the foremost scientists in the kingdom (if it were a question of
literary studies, it would be the foremost
men of letters); that such men are appealed
to and respond to the appeal, and, with the
backing of the government, with whichtheir influence weighs for much, can carry
into effect measures looking to the prevention of slip-shod teaching, and the accomplishment of reasonably good teaching.
Passing over Mr. Philbrick's report on
city schools in the United States, and a
pamphlet with regard to "Arbor Day" and
1885.]
217