Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/283

Rh the adoption and educational use of these books, and it is open to grave criticism.

In the first place, the fundamental principles of the sciences are not "suited to pupils of an early age," and can not be made so by any manner of presentation. The immature mind can not apprehend them, and, though the language in which they are embodied may be learned by heart, there will be no real understanding of the truths conveyed, and the sole "discipline" that can be gained will be that of loading the memory with undigested and unassimilated statements. The mature mind of the race has been long and painfully occupied in working its way to the "fundamental principles" of science; and to pour these into the minds of "pupils of an early age" is not a wise or enlightened practice. Undoubtedly the true method is to bring the young mind "into immediate contact with Nature herself"; or rather to keep it there, as this is where the educator at first finds it. But what is "immediate contact with Nature" in this case, but for the pupil to occupy himself with the objects of Nature—to make his own observations, to make his own experiments, to start his own questions, solve his own difficulties, and do his own thinking? All this would be at first rudimentary and crude, and the pupil will not get at "fundamental principles," but he will cultivate his faculties in the only way they can be properly cultivated, by self exertion. The Science Primers fail for beginners by making no provision for this kind of activity. They are to be told in the old way—they are to have things shown, and explained, and made clear, and everything done for them. "The experiments must be performed by the teacher in regular order before the class." This is the ancient college way of imparting instruction; but even the colleges are departing from it as an intellectual failure, and are establishing physical and chemical laboratories in which the students can be really brought "into immediate contact with Nature herself." Listening to lectures, witnessing experiments, and reciting from textbooks, is not that "immediate contact with Nature herself" which rational education now demands. And what is true of the Primers of Chemistry and Physics in this series is equally true of the Primers of Geology, Botany, Astronomy, Logic, and Political Economy. They are all lesson-books of fundamental principles, clear and admirable as expositions, but all of them as much second-hand book-knowledge as the "Primers of History."

It was hoped that Professor Huxley, as chief editor of this series, and writer of the Introduction to it, would have taken up the question of primary scientific education, at least sufficiently to explain and limit the school use of these little books. But he considers other questions, as we show elsewhere in the notice of his volume; and this is the more disappointing, as Professor Huxley has ever been a strenuous advocate of direct first-hand knowledge in science. He long ago declared that "mere book-knowledge in physical science is a sham and a delusion"; and in his last admirable work on the "Study of Zoölogy" he enjoins that the book be read "crayfish in hand"; but is not this principle of equal if not greater importance when it is proposed to deal with "pupils of an early age"?

There is one book, however, introduced into the American edition of the series, which is not liable to the objections here indicated. This is the "Inventional Geometry" of Mr. W. G. Spencer. It is not a child's book, but it adopts the right method. It may be taken up by boys and girls twelve or fifteen years old, and it will do more to cultivate and strengthen their original powers of thought, more to give them clear ideas and mental self-reliance, than all the other Primers of the series put together. But, as it implies some mental effort to gain the power that can only come from exercise, it is not so easy as