to:-"What is certain is, that henceforth the most powerful nation will be, not that which owns the most extensive territory, nor even that which has the largest population, but that which shall be the most industrious, the most skilful, the best educated, the most capable of utilizing all the means of action which science places at man's disposal to aid him in triumphing over matter. The greatest producer will be the first nation in the world."

51

LECTURE II.

Science must be Acquired before it can be Applied-The best Method of Teaching any subject-Imperfect Methods were adopted in Teaching the older branches of Learning, as the Dead Languages and Mathematics, attested by Eminent Authorities-Mechanical and Philosophical Methods of Teaching-Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's views on the effect of such a Teaching System as the Postal one-The Postal System now in use-The Methods generally employed in teaching Botany, Zoology, Geology very imperfect -This view corroborated by Eminent Scientific Authorities -Students would be more attentive and painstaking if more of Reality and less of Artificiality were adopted in Teaching -The Lecture-taught Class-room Student of Geology, Mineralogy, and Mining contrasted with the Uneducated Fossil-collector or Miner-Illustrations-The essential Qualifications an Educator ought to possess-The Student requires Sympathy, exemplified in the case of Mozart, Shelley, Goldsmith, Gibbon-Dr. Schmitz on the Qualifications a Teacher ought to possess True Education only practicable by a true Philosopher-In Germany Education has assumed the shape and dimensions of a Science.

IN the former Lecture it was stated that before science can be applied it must be acquired. There are, of course, some who have such a great natural aptitude for applying what they know, that they can invent and apply, and often very successfully, without much acquaintance with the science of which their invention is an application. But these

men must not be taken as examples; they are exceptions to the general body of men. Mozart, for instance, learned to play and compose at the same time. The technical, must therefore follow the scientific, education, and to obtain the best scientific education in the time most young men in these countries can afford to devote to its acquirement, it is all-important, if there were no other reasons, that the best systems of instruction should be adopted, and all the different grades of science schools be carried on in complete unison.

We must not, for we cannot afford to, make the mistakes in teaching the Inductive sciences which have been made in teaching the older branches of learning as the dead languages and Mathematics. It has been asserted by men of the highest eminence that one half at least of the years boys have spent at school have been wasted, and the school experience of most persons will confirm this statement. "We do amiss," said Milton, "to spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together so much miserable Latin and Greek as might be learned otherwise easily and delightfully in one year." I was reading lately a biography of the late Emperor Napoleon. When about nineteen years of age, and his education was considered finished, he discovered, as he said, "that he really knew nothing thoroughly well," and he set to work to educate himself. There are few who would possess the requisite

patience and perseverance to commence their own education after it was supposed to have terminated, however desirous they might be to be well educated; for in addition to having to contend with any mental inaptitude, they would have to unlearn —which is a far greater obstacle-in order to learn thoroughly. I can assure you there is nothing more difficult for a teacher to accomplish than to educate those who have been previously superficially taught.*

The best method of teaching any subject is that which harmonizes most with the faculties of the mind in their mode and order of unfolding and commencing the subject with something appropriate which the learner knows, and carrying him forward from the known to that which he has yet to learn. "The cerebrum of man," states Dr. Carpenter, "grows to the modes of thought in which it is habitually exercised; and that such modifications in its structure are transmissible hereditarily; hence conceptions which prove inadmissible to the minds of one generation, in consequence either of their want of Intellectual power to apprehend them, or of their pre-occupation by older habits of thought, subsequently find a

The most difficult to teach I have found, as a rule, are those who have been accustomed to attend popular science lectures; for what they hear is generally very superficial; and, therefore, what they acquire must be superlatively superficial.

universal acceptance, and even come to be approved as "self-evident." The science of Arithmetic, as at present existing, may be regarded as the accumulated product of the intellectual ability of successive generations; each generation building up some addition to the knowledge which it has received from its predecessor. But it can scarcely be questioned by any observant person, that an aptitude for the apprehension of numerical ideas has come to be embodied in the congenital Constitution of races which have long cultivated this branch of knowledge; so that it is far easier to teach Arithmetic to the child of an educated stock than it would be to a young Yanco of the Amazons, who, according to La Condamine, can count no higher than three, his name for which is Poettarrarorin

Before entering upon an examination of the methods employed for teaching Chemistry and some of the other Inductive sciences, I had better notice an objection which might be urged against my views by those who have given little or no attention to the subject. It might be said the present methods have been successful; then why should they not continue to be so? And at what a cost, I would ask, have they been rendered successful hitherto ? How many have failed, compared with those who have succeeded? and could not the successful ones.

*"Principles of Mental Physiology," by Dr. W. B. Carpenter.