Science Teaching in Schools

Abstract

FROM the recent correspondence which has appeared in NATURE on the teaching of science in schools, the most striking impression I have obtained is that on a problem which one would expect to be perfectly straightforward, opinions differ enormously. In other words, it is evident that those people who are now engaged in teaching science do not themselves know, as a body, what their aims and objects are, and what are the best methods necessary to attain them. Controversy is always stimulating, but when it arises from such a wide range of opinion it tends to hamper progressive movement, and has a bad effect on those people who in perfect good faith listen to each expert in turn.