SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1087, 28 March 1911, Page 3

SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS.

ADDRESS BY IfOX. Ci. FOWLDS. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) Christchurch, March 2~. The lion. G. Fowlds, Minister for Education, spent to-day at Rangiora, where lie opened tho new laboratory and class-room at the High School. In performing tho ceremony, he said that practically every secondary school in til? Dominion was, or soon would be, provided with adequato facilities for instruction in natural science. Similar provision had also been made, in connection with nearly f>o per cent, of the district high schools. Last year 12!) classes for instruction in scienco were recognised under the regulations for manual and technical instruction. Classes earning capitation under these regulations were required to devote half (he total time given to instruction during the year to individual practical work by tho pupils themselves. In tho same year, 275 classes for instruction in elementary physics and chemistry were similarly recognised in connection with the public schools. Those classes were in addition to tho classes for instruction in elementary agriculture, which numbered (iG7. It was now- generally conceded by educationists that instruction in science, if given on right lines, should find a place in every scheme of general education—he meant such education as was intended to prepare a person for the duties of manhood and womanhood. It was properly tho function of the secondary school to provide that kind of education, and it was fitting dial; the curriculum of thostschools should be adapted to the common needs of humanity—not to peculiar tastes and conditions of humanity. General education should be both disciplinary and practical; that was, it should train the mental faculties on the assumption that n vigorous and well-balanced mind was the best preparation for all work that might be required of man, and it should also furnish the necessary information for the guidance of conduct in all probable circumstances. The claim of any particular branch of study to a more, or less prominent position in' tho curriculum of schools must 1)0 tried by a two-foid test —its power to afford effective mental discipline, and the practical utility of tho information which it conveyed. In stating that science stood such a test well it_ must not be' thought that it was alone in that respect. The very same mental faculties might be disciplined in ways remarkably similar in dealing with very widely different subjects. The allimportant question was not what people studied, but how they studied. Where science was taught in a way that con-s'.itutt-d an approach to a realisation of its possibilities, it undoubtedly furnished a field for observation along a spccial line—that of the phenomena of nature. Science was thus an indispensable complement to other branches of study, and, it might be added, was ■indispensable not merely to tho secondary school, but also at every stage of education. It was to be feared that a large part of what students learnt at school did not survive transplantation to the climate of "the world," in spite of tho demonstrable value of its educational possibilities. It would, however, appear that science at its best stood a better chance of thriving in everyday life than bonk learning in any other branch of study. It was not proposed that the course in science should, in tho remotest way, suggest how a person might become wealthy. Thero were, doubtless, however, many teachers of science who would be delighted to attend such a course if it were given. Finally, it had been said that tho scientific man exercised himself with so

limited a part of human exnerienco (as compared with that touched by classics, for example) that the study of science, had. of necessity, a narrowing influence. That argument appeared to be merely a case of comparing one study nt its worst with another at its best. Science .it its worst, under n poor teacher, was doubtless as narrowing—not to say dull and useless—as any other study taught under the same conditions. Briefly, the objects nf education in science were, on one hand, to make men capable, self-sustain-ing, and physically comfortnble, and, on the other hand, to increase their capacity and opportunities for intellectual eujo.vment. Each of those objects had an ethical aspect, as men who were materially well to do and intellectually hapny coitld hardly help being- good men and | gocd citizens.