Elementary Practical Science

Abstract

IN the teaching of science, as of any other subject, the importance of method is most apparent in dealing with the elements. Of late years, since laboratory instruction has been generally introduced into our colleges, the teaching of science to advanced students may be said to be based on correct methods. But so much cannot yet be said for the teaching of the elements of science to young children. If, however, science is to obtain a recognised place in the curriculum of our primary and secondary schools, it is most important that the means adopted for the teaching of science should be educational in character. Very rarely is science so taught to young children and junior pupils in schools as to bring into active exercise the very faculties of the mind which it is supposed to develop. The teaching of science follows too closely the older education, by appealing to the memory, and storing the mind with facts and information of more or less value; and the methods employed involve a mental discipline too similar in kind to that of ordinary mathematics.

Elementary Course of Practical Science.

Part I. By Hugh Gordon (London: Macmillan and Co. 1893.)