a learner, he can properly call no other knowledge his own. What is reported to us by another is that other's, if gained at first hand by experience; but it stands on a different footing from that which we have gained by our own experience. He merely hands it over to us; but when we receive it, its condition is already changed. It wants the brightness, definiteness, and certainty in our eyes which it had in his; and moreover, it is merely a loan, and not our property. The fact, for instance, about the earth's circumference was to him a living fact; it sprang into being as the outcome of experiments and reasonings, with the entire chain of which it was seen by him to be intimately-indeed indissolubly and organically connected. To us it is a dead fact, severed from its connection with the body of truth, and, by our hypothesis, having no organic relation to the living truths we have gained by our own minds. These are convertible into our Science; that is not. What I insist on then is, that the knowledge from experience-that which is gained by bringing our own minds into direct contact with matter-is the only knowledge that as novices in science we have to do with. The dogmatic knowledge imposed upon us by authority, though originally gained by the same means, is really, not our's, but another's —is, as far as we are concerned, unorganizable; and therefore, though Science to its proprietor, is not Science to us. To us it is merely information, or haphazard knowledge.

The conclusions, then, at which we arrive, are—(1) That the true foundation of physical Science lies in the knowledge of physical facts gained at first-hand by observation and experiment, to be made by the learner himself; (2) that all knowledge not thus gained is, pro tanto, unorganizable, and not suited to his actual condition; and (3) that his facts become organized into Science by the operation of his own mind upon them,

SCIENCE TEACHING.

I have elsewhere* endeavored to expound the correlation of learning and teaching, and to show that the natural process of investigation by which the unassisted student-unassisted, that is, by book or teacher-would seek, as a first discoverer, to gain an accurate knowledge of facts and their interpretation, suggests to us both the nature and scope of the teacher's, and especially the Science-teacher's functions. According to this view of the subject, the learner's method, and the teacher's, serve as a mutual limit to each other. The learner is a discoverer or investigator engaged in interrogating the concrete matter before him, with a view to ascertain his nature and properties; and the teacher is a superintendent or director of the learner's process, pointing out the problem to be solved, concentrating the learner's attention upon it, varying the points of view, suggesting experiments, enquiring what they result in; converting even errors and mistakes into means of increased power, bringing back the old to interpret the new, the known to interpret the unknown, requiring an exact record of results arrived at-in short, exercising all the powers of the learner's mind upon the matter in hand, in order to make him an accurate observer and experimenter, and to train him in the method of investigation. The teacher, then, is to be governed in his teaching, not by independent notions of his own, but by considerations inherent in the natural process by which the pupil learns. He is not, therefore, at liberty to ignore this natural process, which essentially

*Lecture on "Theories of Teaching with the corresponding Practice," April 26, 1869.

involves the observation, experiment, and reflection of the pupil; nor to supersede it by intruding the results of the observation, experiment, and reflection of others. He is, on the contrary, bound to recognize these operations of his pupil's mind as the true foundation of Science-teaching which he professes to carry out. In other words, the process of the learner is the true foundation of that of the teacher.

I may refer, for proof of this assertion, to the teaching of botany to poor village children by the late Professor Henslow; to the teaching of general Science by the late Dean Dawes to a similar class of children; to that pursued at the present time by the Bristol Trade School; and to the invaluable lessons given to the imaginary Harry and Lucy by Miss Edgeworth. Without warranting every process adopted by these eminently successful teachers, some of whom were perhaps a little too much addicted to explaining, I have no hesitation in declaring that they one and all acted mainly on the principle that true Science-teaching consists in bringing the pupil's mind into direct contact with facts-in getting him to investigate, discover, and invent for himself.

Authority of Experts.

Professor Huxley, in a lecture on Scientific Education, says :

"If scientific training is to yield its most eminent results, it must be made practical-that is to say, in explaining to a child the general phenomena of nature, you must, as far as possible, give reality to your teaching by object-lessons. In teaching him botany, he must handle the plants and dissect the flowers for himself; in teaching him physics and chemistry, you must not be solic itous to fill him with information, but you must be careful that what he learns he knows of his own knowledge. Do not be satisfied with telling him that a magnet attracts iron. Let him see that it does; let him feel the pull of the one upon the other for himself. Pursue this discipline carefully and conscientiously, and you may make sure that, however scanty may be the measure of information which you have poured into the boy's mind, you have created an intellectual habit of priceless value in practical life."

Again, in the same lecture, the Professor says:—

"If the great benefits of scientific training are sought, it is essential that such training should be real-that is to say that the mind of the scholar should be brought into direct relation with fact; that he should not merely be told a thing, but made to see, by the use of his own intellect and ability, that the thing is so, and not otherwise. The great peculiarity of scientific training-that in virtue of which it cannot be replaced by any other discipline whatever-is this bringing of the mind directly into contact with fact, and practising the mind in the completest form of induction-that is to say, in drawing conclusions from particular facts made known by immediate observation of nature.'

Dr. Kemshead, Science Teacher at Dulwich College, says :

"I wish particularly to draw the distinction between mere scientific knowledge and scientific training. I do not believe in the former; I do believe in in the latter. In physical and experimental science, studied for the sake of training, the mode of teaching is everything. I know of one school (we shall soon see that there are many such) in which physical science is made a strong point in the prospectus, where chemistry is taught by reading a text-book (a very antiquated one, since it only gives forty-five elements), but in which the experiments are learned by heart, and never seen practically. Such a proceeding is a mere farce on Science.

To develope scientific habits of thought-the scientific mind, the teaching must be of a totally different nature. In order to get the fullest benefit from a scientific education, the teacher should endeavor to bring his pupil face to face with the great problems of nature, as though he were the first discoverer. He should encourage him from the first to record accurately all his experiments, the object he had in view in making them, the results even when they have failed, and the inferences which he draws in each case, with as much rigor and

exactitude as though they were to be published in the 'Philosophical Transac tions.' He should, in fact, teach his pupil to face the great problems of nature as though they had never been solved before."

"To face the great problems of nature as though they had never been solved before"-" to bring the child face to face with the great problems of nature, as though he were the first discoverer"-these weighty, pregnant, and luminous expressions contain the essence of the whole question I have endeavored to set before you. They define, as you easily perceive, the attitude of the pupil in regard to his subjective process of learning, and the function of the teacher in regard to his objective process of teaching-the one being the counterpart of the other."

Dr. Acland, in his evidence before the Public Schools Commission, remarks :— "I may say, generally, that I should value all knowledge of these physical sciences very little indeed unless it was otherwise than book-work. *If it is merely a question of getting up certain books, and being able to answer certain book questions, that is merely an exercise of the memory of a very useless kind. The great object, though not the sole object, of this training should be to get the boys to observe and understand the action of matter in some department or another. I want them to see and know the things, and in that way they will evoke many qualities of the mind, which the study of these subjects is intended to develop."

Professor Huxley, before the Commission on Scientific Instruction, says:

The great blunder that our people make, I think, is attempting to teach from books; our schoolmasters have largely been taught from books and nothing but books, and a great many of them understand nothing but book-teaching, as far as I can see. The consequence is, that when they attempt to deal with Scientific teaching, they make nothing of it. If you are setting to work to teach a child Science, you must teach it through its eyes, and its hands, and its senses."

I do not for a moment deny that much is to be gained from the study of scientific text-books. It would be absurd to do so. What I do deny is, that the reading up of books on Science-which is, strictly speaking, a literary study—either is, or can possibly be, a training in scientific method. To receive facts in Science on any other authority than that of the facts themselves; to get up the observations, experiments, and comments of others, instead of observing, experiment. ing, and commenting ourselves; to learn definitions, rules, abstract propositions, technicalities, before we personally deal with the facts which lead up to them; all this, whether in literary or scientific education-and especially in the latter -is of the essence of cramming, and is therefore entirely opposed to, and destructive of, true mental training and discipline. As I have elsewhere said :"The entire process of the earliest instruction of children should consist in training the faculties for their subsequent work; and for this instruction God's book of the Universe is better suited than any books of men. The facts and phenomena of Nature are the sentences, words, and letters which, before all others, the child should be taught to read; and if taught to read them by a teacher who knows his business, they furnish the soundest and most interesting instruction that the child is capable of receiving. The materials for the lesson are constantly at hand; the faculties for using them are constantly ready for use; and it is the very raison d'etre of the teacher, the purpose for which he exists, to bring the materials and the faculties into contact; and thus to make the child find tongues in trees, sermons in stones, and books in the running brooks. For want of such teaching, the child grows to a man, and as a man lives all his life, carrying with him eyes which do not see, ears which do not hear, a mind which does not think. By means of such lessons the art of observing may be definitely taught, the art of inventing prompted, and the method of scientific investigation initiated."

JAMES DONALDSON

THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION.*

Is there a science of education? and is that science of use to practical educators? In attempting to answer these questions, we must commence with a definition of education. This term is used in two senses, a general and a more restricted. In the wider sense, the term is applied to the drawing out of the powers of man, whatever be the agents which produce this effect. In this sense, external nature, the experiences of life, friends and enemies, in short, all that affects a man, are educating him. And a science of this kind of education would be an exhibition of the laws which regulate the development of his physical and mental powers.

In the more restricted sense of the term, education is the conscious efforts of human beings to draw out the natures of other human beings to the utmost perfection. This is the more usual meaning of the term, and it is in this sense alone that we shall use it. Education, being a conscious effort to effect a purpose, and implying the application of means to an end, is an art. When, therefore, we speak of a science of education, we do not mean to assert that education is itself a science, but that it is based on a science; that a set of laws which it is the business of a science to discover can be used in the work of education. Now, this science can be no other than the science of the natures which are to be drawn out; for if they are drawn out according to fixed laws, then the educator has simply to take advantage of his knowledge of these laws. In other words, physical education is an applied psychology, and mental education is an applied psychology.

We seem to have answered the first question in thus stating the case. Almost every one will allow that physiology is a science, and therefore there must be a science of physical education. And perhaps there are few who would refuse to psychology the same title, and therefore mental education has also a science to regulate its procedure.

We dismiss from our notice at present physiology, and confine ourselves to psychology. We remark in regard to it, that we only appear to have answered the question; for psychology may be a science, and yet not form a basis for the art of education. We must look more minutely into the functions of a science.

These are, generally speaking, two. The first is to bring the phenomena with which the science is concerned into groups, until the highest possible unity be reached. Thus, in natural history, the natural historian is principally

* Dr. Donaldson is Rector of the Iligh School of Edinburgh, and the Author of a volume of Lectures on Educational Topics, delivered before the Philosophical Institution and the High School Literary Association of Edinburgh in 1874. The contents of the volume (pp 185) are I. History of Education in Prussia. II. History of Education in England. III. Aim of Primary Education. IV. Relation of Universities to the Working Classes. V. The Science of Education.

482

employed in tracing resemblances, and thus grouping the various oojects of his observation into classes. Now the psychology of this country has been, for the most part, occupied with generalisations of this nature. The various kinds of acts of the mind have been observed, and they have been grouped together under such names as memory, judgment, reasoning. They have been supposed to issue from separate and distinct powers of the mind. And even when the separate existence of these powers has been denied, we find them still used as generalisations under such terms as the presentative, conservative, reproductive, . representative, elaborative, and regulative faculties. Again, the great effort of psychologists has been to ascertain what have been called the laws of thought; but by the laws of thought they do not mean the regular and fixed activities in which the mind produces thought, but the highest generalisations of all the individual products of thinking. Now these laws never can be of any use in education. They are absolutely barren and profitless; and this is allowed by professed metaphysicians. "Supposing," says Mansel, "that the act of thinking is governed by general laws at all (and that it is so is manifest from the inability to conceive absurdities), such laws can clearly impart nothing in the way of instruction or the discovery of new truths." Accordingly, the practical educator may read through many treatises on psychology, and he will find curious discussions of insoluble problems, but he will not find much that will help him in his work. It is, we imagine, this experience which has led some to deny that there is a science of education at all.

But there is another function of science, and if we find psychological science discharge it, then we shall certainly have a science of education. This function of science is, from known and ascertained phenomena, to form generalisations which will explain and account for other phenomena. Such are, for the most past, the laws which constitute the physical sciences. We see one object affect another in a particular manner once; we notice it again and again, and still it affects it in the same way; and then we infer that the one object will always affect it in this way. We become acquainted thus with a considerable number of particular causes and effects; we then group the causes and effects, and express the result in a general law; and we expect that this general law will explain to us phenomena of which we have no direct means of discovering the cause. Now, if we could get a science of mind which should observe phenomena, causes and effects, and should group these causes into general laws, we should certainly have the kind of laws which we need. The previous generalisations of psychology which we have noticed are not properly laws at all; they regulate nothing. They are generalisations not of the activities of the mind, but of the products. Now, however, we are speaking of the generalisations of the activities. And we ask, Is a science of the activities of mind possible, and does such a science exist? The answer, it seems to us, must be, that such a science of the mind's activities must be possible. If we are to perceive law anywhere, it must be in the phenomena of mind. We allow at once that such phenomena will be infinitely more complicated than those of matter; but this complication will not alter the fact of law. If a man has a strong desire for gold in his mind, I am sure that that desire for gold can be accounted for; that the strength of it can also be accounted for by the previous activities of the man's mind. Again, if a man is entirely deficient in the feeling of reverence, his deficiency must be explicable through the previous activities of his mind. In fact, the man's mind, in its present state, can be nothing else than the original