Physiography: an Introduction to the study of Nature

Abstract

AMONG educational, works which are calculated to afford real assistance to the teacher in his all-important labours, we may recognise two distinct classes. One of these includes the “text-books,” which should aim at presenting only the accurate and well-proportioned outlines of a system of instruction, leaving it to the teacher himself so to fill in these outlines with explanation and illustration, as to cause the new facts and reasonings to produce the most vivid and abiding impressions upon the minds of his pupils. But inasmuch as the attainment of such a result demands much practical skill and educational tact—a skill and tact which are by no means easy of acquirement—the necessity and value of another class of works becomes manifest. This second class of educational works comprises such as aim at instructing the teacher how best to perform his difficult task; which exemplify the work of explanation, illustrate the art of illustration, and show how the dry bones of barren facts may, by clear arrangement and logical connection, be compacted into a body of real knowledge, and this body by being infused with the earnest intelligence of the teacher, may be quickened into active and fruitful life in the minds of the scholars. Physiography: an Introduction to the study of Nature. By T. H. Huxley (London: Macmillan and Co., 1877.)