Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/518

500 minds as an admirable scheme. But boys of fourteen are not logical, and in science they are in too new and untried a field to appreciate the fact that the simple organisms and tissues they study under the microscope are the basis of a more interesting life. A philosophy with coherent, dependent, and interrelated parts, which you remember Mr. Frederic Harrison charged Arnold with lacking, does not make a very far-reaching impression on boys of this age. I believe the important thing is not to attempt to give the children a systematic knowledge of any part of natural history, but rather to arouse in them a keen and affectionate interest in the study of Nature. First impressions count for so much. The boys are just beginning the serious study of science, and it is so important that they should be fired by it, and not for a moment repelled. The cut-and-dried and systematic have their place, but not, I think, in secondary science work. And so I am advocating the seemingly illogical process of beginning at the end instead of at the beginning—of making, in truth, a very open bid for the boyish interest, and starting out with dogs and cats and horses and chickens and pigeons; with trees and flowers and vegetables, in place of lower and, from the childish point of view, less interesting organisms. In the same way, rocks and minerals and ores have more to teach than the more abstract chemical elements. Later, it may be, the work can lead back to the simple forms, and build up a world logical enough to suit Mill. But at present the boy is interested in the big things that he finds in his world, and would much prefer to investigate them. I believe that he is right, and that our elementary science work wants to be more thoroughly superficial, and less superficially thorough. I am not ashamed to recommend a return to the surface of things.

The second year's work in science is devoted to physics—to mechanics, heat, light, and sound. The work here is rich in possibilities, and is limited only by the ingenuity and skill of the teacher. It is work, too, that can be brought into the closest relation with the manual departments. Any number of projects in the way of physical apparatus can be made in wood and metal. The more of the apparatus is home-made and home-devised, the more truly practical and educational is the work. There is also a danger here that the instruction will run too much to measurement, and not enough to the experimental and phenomenal. I put in this word of caution because the teachers are mostly college men, as we want them to be, but men who have been so deeply drilled in laboratory methods of work and thought that they may have come to look upon the entire phenomenal world as somewhat of a divine concession to the vulgar mind. This attitude, I think, is unfortunate educationally.

The third year's work in science is particularly strong. From