Daily Readings in Natural Science

Abstract

THIS book has been prepared for beginners in the study of Natural Science; it is clearly and pleasantly written; each day in the week during a term has its subject allotted to it, either on Natural History, Physics, Botany, Astronomy, Natural Phenomena, Chemistry, Geology, Manufactures, Animal Physiology, or Applied Chemistry. The chapters are short, with questions at the end of each for the use of teachers. Mr. Robertson has written several other similar books, which he uses in his own school, and his success as a teacher lends great weight to the following extract from the preface:—“It is hardly necessary to descant lengthily upon the advantage of introducing science teaching into schools. The author, however, may be pardoned for giving his experience of adding science to the usual course of studies among his own boys. The science classes in his school had not long been established before he found that those boys who took no interest in their ordinary work soon manifested a quickness and brightness in dealing with natural objects that was quite remarkable, so much so, that after the first three months he doubled the time devoted to science by the upper form, and commenced new classes for the benefit of the middle and lower forms. Speaking generally, the study of Natural Science quickens a boy's powers of observation and comparison; he learns to express his thoughts in proper logical order, his judgment is developed, and the tendency that all boys have to form hasty conclusions is checked and tempered.” To these we may join the following practical hints on conveying scientific instruction to schoolboys, in a notice to teachers at the end of the book:—“To be of real use science must be taught practically. Experiment and deduction should go hand in hand, and a boy ought never to be called upon to commit a fact to memory the truth of which he has not previously seen demonstrated. This of course presupposes perfection in the way of apparatus and specimens, a state of things that may possibly exist some day at such magnificent centres of learning as Eton, Harrow, or Rugby, but the boy who by circumstances is obliged to pass his days at smaller establishments, must take for granted a large number of the facts with which he stores his memory. But the ingenious teacher will see a thousand ways of demonstrating facts to his pupils with the outlay of very little money or time. The short course of Natural History given here should be supplemented by visits to the Zoological Gardens and the British Museum. Having gone through the first three lessons, the cleverest boy in the class, or the teacher himself, should note down the names of the different animals described, with their peculiarities; the notes might then be copied by each boy, or at any rate read out to them. The visit to the Gardens or Museum should next be paid, not with the idea of wandering about in a desultory manner, but with the object of testing the truth of the statements contained, in the lessons. Half an hour with a rabbit's or sheep's head, the examination of the teeth of the cat or dog, will help wonderfully to develop a boy's love for Natural History. The lessons should if possible be illustrated by the skulls or skeletons of some of the smaller members of each order or class. Such specimens may be obtained at a cheap rate from Mr. Cutter, 35, Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury. The same principle maybe followed with Astronomy.” These extracts show that the book is the work of a practical man, and as such we commend it.

Daily Readings in Natural Science.

By Rev. J. Robertson. (London: C. Bean. 1870.)