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.
(_c_) The cotyledons are gradually getting smaller, for the seedling
is feeding on them.
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.
Tap Root.--Seedling of Sunflower.
Primary Root.--Seedling of Maize (not a tap root).
[Histology of root.]
Drawing of transverse section of a dicotyledonous root, showing axial
arrangement of bundles.
[Development of bundles.]
Illustrated by drawings of transverse sections of young and old roots.
[Origin of lateral roots.]
Drawing through long section of root, showing lateral roots arising
from pericycle.
[Forms of roots.]
Drawings of carrot, turnip, orchid, etc.
STEM.
(_a_) Underground stems.
Rhizome--Solomon’s Seal.
Bulb--Long: Section of _Ranunculus bulbosus_.
Corm--Long: Section of crocus.
Tubers--Drawing of potato in different stages of growth.
Runner--Drawing of strawberry.
(_b_) Histology of stem.
Drawings of transverse and longitudinal sections of monocotyledonous
and dicotyledonous stems.
Specimens of bast fibres of hemp, Mexican aloe, lace tree.
(_c_) Axillary outgrowths of stem or modified branches.
Tendrils--Sweet bryony.
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.
(_c_) For food, _e.g._, carnivorous plants, sundew, pitcher plant,
bladder-wort.
(_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. Marsh marigold. Drawing of
Acorn. gooseberry.
Achene-- Legume--
Corn buttercup. Sweet-pea.
Yellow goat’s beard. Capsule-- Drupe--
Clematis. Thlaspi arvense. Drawing of peach.
Schizocarps-- Shepherd’s purse.
Geranium and Violet.
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-- „ „ horse chestnut.
Septifragal-- „ „ 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 „ „ „ „ „ „ „
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).
{ Chemistry or Physics or Botany;
Senior Classes { 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.]
[Independent reading.]
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. 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.
[Educational advantages of a progressive chemistry course.]
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. 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.