Physical Science in Schools

Abstract

AT a meeting of the British Association five years ago, the subject of science teaching in our higher schools excited unusual interest. Not only were papers read and followed by enthusiastic discussion, but a committee was privately formed, including more than twenty leaders of the association, all of whom undertook to combine in pressing the claims of science on our headmasters, and in offering counsel as to systems and methods, apparatus, and expenditure. Technical difficulties prevented the formal nomination of the committee in that year; and before the next meeting came round the Science Commission was in full work, and the ground was covered. Five years have passed; the Commission has reported; and the British Association, if it deals at all with the problem that lies at the, root of our scientific progress, will have to face the fact that only ten endowed schools in England give as much as four hours a week to the study of science; in other words, that in spite of ten years of talk, the éclat of a Royal Commission, a complete consensus of scientific authority, and the loud demands of less educated but not less keen-sighted public opinion, the organisation and practical working of science in our higher schools has scarcely advanced a step since the Schools Inquiry Commission reported in 1868.