Science-teaching,  then,  should  be  of  a
kind  which  should  secure  to  the  student


this  educative  and  disciplinary  effect,  its
aim  being  the  training  of  the  pupil's  intel-
lect even  more  than  the  storing  of  his
memory  with  facts.  To  this  end  it  must
be,  above  all  else,  practical,  and  the  teacher
must  have  gained  his  knowledge  at  first
hand  from  nature,  as  well  as  at  second
hand  from  books.  The  statements  of  facts
made  by  the  teacher  must  be  substantiated
by  experiment,  and  the  experiments  made
in  class  by  the  teacher  should  be  repeated
by  the  students  severally  in  the  labora-
tory practice,  which  should  invariably
succeed  the  teaching  in  the  lecture-hall.
Elaborate  apparatus  should  not  be  supplied,
but  the  pupil  should  be  taught,  as  far  as
possible,  to  construct  his  apparatus  for
himself.  The  extraordinary  and  embar-
rassing results  which  follow  from  care-
lessly constructed  apparatus,  improperly
adjusted  tubes,  soiled  glasses,  &c.,  carry
to  the  student  instruction  other  than  that
conveyed  directly  by  his  experiments.  The
value  of  accuracy,  cleanliness,  patience,
and  order  becomes  vividly  real  to  him
when  he  sees  the  smooth  successes  in  the
lecture-hall  followed  by  his  own  failures
in  the  laboratory.  Unless  science-teach-
ing be  thus  made  practical  it  had  better
not  be  attempted.  The  extraordinary
blunders  made  by  students  at  science  ex
animations  would  be  impossible  had  the
students  ever  seen  the  things  they  de-
scribe, and  a  mass  of  ill-apprehended  facts
shovelled  into  the  memory  from  text-
books is  worse  than  useless  from  the  edu-
cational point  of  view.
