these tiresome duties. The mischief done in this way is very great. It
deadens the average students and exasperates and maddens the eager
ones. I am inclined to think that a very considerable proportion of
what passes as "practical" science work, for which costly laboratories
are built and expensive benches fitted, consists of very similar
solemnities, and it cannot be too strongly urged that "practical" work
that does not illuminate is mere waste of the student's time.

This physics course would cover an experimental quantitative treatment
of the electric current, it would glance in an explanatory way at many
of the phenomena of physical geography, and it would be correlated with
a study of the general principles of chemistry. A detailed knowledge of
chemical compounds is not a part of general education, it keeps better
in reference books than in the non-specialized head, and it is only the
broad conceptions of analysis and combination, and of the relation of
energy to chemical changes, that have to be attained. Beyond this, and
the application of map drawing to give accurate ideas and to awaken
interest in geography and history, it is open to discussion whether any
Fact subject need be taught as schooling at all. Ensure the full
development of a man's mental capacity, and he will get his Fact as he
needs it. And if his mind is undeveloped he can make no use of any fact
he has. The subject called "Human Physiology" may be at once dismissed
as absurdly unsuitable for school use. One is always meeting worthy
people who "don't see why children should not know something about
their own bodies," and who are not apparently aware that the medical
profession after some generations of fairly systematic inquiry knows
remarkably little. Save for some general anatomy, it is impossible to
teach school-children anything true about the human body, because the
explanation of almost any physiological process demands a knowledge of
physical and chemical laws much sounder and subtler than the average