Abstract
MR. CRUMP (vide p. 56) though adopting a critical form and tone, really endorses the grounds of my suggestion that the Science and Art Department should dissever itself by an age limit from school science. He is inclined to be especially severe upon the defects of the Government examinations because they are controlled by scientific men, and to excuse the proper school examining boards because they have—according to Mr. Crump—attempted to examine in science without any qualification to do so. But I fail to see why eminent scientific men should be expected to be experts in elementary science teaching, any more than distinguished littérateurs, in the art of teaching to read, and it seems to me—in spite of Mr. Crump's “absolute” denial—that examining boards, neither professedly literary nor scientific but professedly educational, are more to blame in following and abetting the Department's premium upon text-book cramming. The fact remains that the London Matriculate ignores practical teaching of any kind, and that the “practical chemistry” of the Locals and College of Preceptors is essentially the same test-tube analysis as the South Kensington examination. Anyone who knows the London Matriculation examination—witness Miss Heath's concluding remark—will appreciate the quiet humour of Mr. Crump's allusion to it as “awakening and developing the powers of observation and reasoning.”
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WELLS, H. Science Teaching in Schools. Nature 51, 106 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/051106b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/051106b0
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