Education; Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804; Science -- Study and teaching
I hope you will consider that the arguments I have now stated, even if
there were no better ones, constitute a sufficient apology for urging
the introduction of science into schools. The next question to which I
have to address myself is, What sciences ought to be thus taught? And
this is one of the most important of questions, because my side (I am
afraid I am a terribly candid friend) sometimes spoils its cause by
going in for too much. There are other forms of culture beside physical
science; and I should be profoundly sorry to see the fact forgotten, or
even to observe a tendency to starve, or cripple, literary, or
aesthetic, culture for the sake of science. Such a narrow view of the
nature of education has nothing to do with my firm conviction that a
complete and thorough scientific culture ought to be introduced into
all schools. By this, however, I do not mean that every schoolboy
should be taught everything in science. That would be a very absurd
thing to conceive, and a very mischievous thing to attempt. What I mean
is, that no boy nor girl should leave school without possessing a grasp
of the general character of science, and without having been
disciplined, more or less, in the methods of all sciences; so that,
when turned into the world to make their own way, they shall be
prepared to face scientific problems, not by knowing at once the
conditions of every problem, or by being able at once to solve it; but
by being familiar with the general current of scientific thought, and
by being able to apply the methods of science in the proper way, when
they have acquainted themselves with the conditions of the special
problem.
That is what I understand by scientific education. To furnish a boy
with such an education, it is by no means necessary that he should
devote his whole school existence to physical science: in fact, no one
would lament so one-sided a proceeding more than I. Nay more, it is not
necessary for him to give up more than a moderate share of his time to
such studies, if they be properly selected and arranged, and if he be
trained in them in a fitting manner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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