Scientific American Supplement, No. 286, June 25, 1881Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 286, June 25, 1881
Various
Science -- Periodicals
2. The work must be based on what is already known. This, one of the
best known of the principles of teaching, is of at least as great
importance in physical science as in any other department of knowledge.
It seems to me in many cases to be more important here than elsewhere.
It is not necessary to reach each point by passing over every other
point usually considered. Lessons in electricity or sound, for instance,
can be given to children who have done nothing with other parts of
science. But a natural beginning must be made, and an orderly sequence
of lessons adopted. Children will not do what adults would find almost
impossible in covering gaps between lessons.
Science may be compared to a great temple. Pillars, each built of many
curiously joined stones, standing at the very entrance, represent the
departments of science so far as man has studied them. We need not dig
down and study the foundations with the children; we need not study
every pillar nor choose any particular one rather than some other; but
we must learn something of every stone--of each great fact--in the
pillar we select, be it ever so little. The original investigator climbs
to stones never before reached, or boldly ventures away into the dim
recesses beyond the entrance to bring back hints of what may be known
and believed a hundred years hence, perhaps. The exact investigator
measures each stone. Patiently and toilsomely scientific men examine
them with glass and reagent. We need not do this, but we must omit none
of the stones.
3. The work must be continuous. To continue the figure, the stones must
be considered in some regular order. One lesson in electricity, one in
sound, then one in some other department is injurious. We remember best
by associated facts, and, while with the child this is less so than with
the man, one great object of this work is to teach him to remember in
that way.
4. Experiments should never be performed for mere show. Of two
experiments which illustrate a fact equally well it is often best to
select the most striking and brilliant one. The attention and interest
of the child will be gained in this way when they would not be to so
great an extent in any other. The point of the experiment, however,
should never be lost sight of in attention to the merely wonderful in
it.
With older pupils, and especially with those who use books for
themselves and perform the experiments there considered, the fact that
experiments demand work, downright hard work, with care, and patience,
and perseverance, and courage, cannot be kept too prominently before
them.
5. Every lesson should have a definite object. Not the general value of
the experiment, but some _one thing_ which it shows should be the object
considered.
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