very difficult to eradicate; and their mental attitude toward their studies is usually a false one.
The first fruits of my experience were made public in 1884, at one of the Educational Conferences held at the Health Exhibition. On that occasion, and again at the British Association meeting at Aberdeen in 1885, in the course of my address as president of the Chemical Section, after somewhat sharply criticising the methods of teaching in vogue, I pointed out what I conceived to be the directions in which improvements should be effected. Others meanwhile were working in the same spirit, and consequently, in 1887, a number of us willingly consented to act as a committee "for the purpose of inquiring into and reporting upon the present methods of teaching chemistry." This committee was appointed at the meeting of the British Association in York, and consisted of Prof. W. R. Dunstan (secretary). Dr. J. H. Gladstone, Mr. A. G. Vernon Harcourt, Prof. H. McLeod, Prof. Meldola, Mr. Pattison Muir, Sir Henry E. Roscoe, Dr. W. J. Russell (chairman), Mr. W. A. Shenstone, Prof. Smithells, Mr. Stallard, and myself. A report was presented at the Bath meeting in 1888, giving an account of replies received to a letter addressed to the head masters of schools in which elementary chemistry was taught. In 1889 and 1890 reports were presented in which were included suggestions drawn up by myself for a course of elementary instruction in physical science.
Let me at once emphasize the fact that these schemes were for a course of instruction in physical science—not in chemistry alone. The objects to be accomplished by the introduction of such lessons into schools have since been more fully dwelt on in a paper which I read at the College of Preceptors early in 1891, printed in the Educational Times in May of that year. After pointing out that literary and mathematical studies are not a sufficient preparation in the great majority of cases for the work of the world, as they develop introspective habits too exclusively, I then said, in future boys and girls generally must not be confined to desk studies; they must not only learn a good deal about things; they must also be taught how to do things, and to this end must learn how others before them have done things by actually repeating—not by merely reading about—what others have done. We ask, in fact, that the use of eyes and hands in unraveling the meaning of the wondrous changes which are going on around us in the world of Nature shall be taught systematically in schools generally—that is to say, that the endeavor shall be made to inculcate the habits of observing accurately, of experimenting exactly, of observing and experimenting with a clearly defined and logical purpose, and of logical reasoning from observation and the results of experimental inquiry. Scientific habits
