Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/124

114 history or Latin—that is, by committing and reciting lessons from books. It is universally admitted that this is absurd, but what to do about it is the difficulty. The system is self-perpetuating. The normal schools go on in the old ruts, and continue to furnish teachers of the old type. Higher standards of attainment may be exacted in the routine branches, and there is unquestionably some improvement in methods; but little is done to bring the minds of pupils into familiar relations with Nature. Scarcely any thing is done for the thorough cultivation of the observing powers by exercising them upon objects and experiments. In response to the demand for studying Nature, we have only the rude expedient of object-lessons for children, administered by teachers who know nothing of physical science on the one hand, nor the science of the growing mind on the other.

What we want in every State in the Union is what Prof. Agassiz is preparing to supply in Massachusetts, an opportunity for teachers to come together, where there are cabinets, laboratories, specimens, and experiments, and an able corps of instructors who are at home with all these resources, and can teach directly from Nature herself. If the vacation-weeks only are to be devoted to this work, the scheme of studies will require to be drawn up with strict reference to their urgent and practical requirements. Nantucket will be favorable for studying the zoological productions of the sea; but Nature is an inexhaustible museum, and every place abounds with the material for the illustration of scientific study. The air, the fields, the woods, and the streams, swarm with life; the rocks are uncovered, minerals abound; the earth is carpeted with vegetation, the forces of Nature are ever playing around us, while every family, school, church, factory, poor-house, jail, neighborhood, and village, affords materials for the scientific study of social phenomena and laws. What is needed is, to teach teachers to bring their minds to bear directly upon those things, to observe, compare, and analyze them, so that their knowledge may be real, positive, and worthy the name of science. It may not be easy to found a proper curriculum for a scientific teachers' institute, selecting just the proper subjects, and assigning them their due proportions; yet the work is entirely practicable, and experience would soon fix the adjustments. As a preliminary step to such a movement, nothing could be better than a national convention of teachers, professors, and school superintendents, called for the distinctive purpose of laying down the plan and organizing the means for the promotion of scientific education. Prof. Agassiz has broken the ice, and will show us what it is possible to do in this direction during a single vacation. His enterprise is a national movement, and at once raises the important question as to how similar advantages may be gained for the general education of the country.

Since the above article was put into type, an important change has taken place in Prof. Agassiz's programme. He has been presented with an island as a location for his school, and with a $50,000 endowment to assist in defraying its expenses. The donor is Mr. John Anderson, of New York, and the island of 100 acres, known as Penikese, is one of the Elizabeth group, near New Bedford, four miles from the main-land, and twenty-four miles from Newport. It has been the summer residence of Mr. Anderson, and contains such buildings and improvements as a wealthy occupant would construct for purposes of residence. What the effect of this change will be upon the original plan is yet problematical, but it can hardly fail to be considerable. We see it stated that $30,000