The study of the properties of matter, for instance, would be a fearful
and wonderful thing to set a class of little ones at as a beginning in
scientific work. Just what matter, and force, and molecules, and atoms
are may be well enough for the student who is old enough to begin to use
a book, but they would be but dry husks to a younger child. Many of the
careful classifications and analyses of topics in text books had far
better be used as summaries than in any other way; and a definition is
better when the pupil knows it is true than when he is about to find out
whether it is or not.
An ideal course in science would be one in which nothing should be
learned but that found out by the observation of the pupil himself under
the guidance of the teacher, necessary terms being given, but only when
the thing to be named had been considered, and the mind demanded the
term because of a felt need. Practically such a method is impossible in
its fullest sense, but a closer approach to it will be an advantage.
Among the numerous good results which will follow the study of physical
science are the following:
1. The cultivation of all the faculties of the child in a natural order,
thus making him grow into a ready, quick, and observing man. Education
in schools is too often shaped so as to repress instead of cultivate the
instinctive desire for the _knowledge of things_ which is found in every
child.
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