the elaboration of some law, or principle, or theory which the school
boy of to-day learns in an hour and recites in a breath. Why does water
rise in a pump? Do all bodies, large and small, fall equally fast? The
principles which answer and explain such questions can be made so clear
and evident to the mind of a pupil that he would almost fancy they must
have been known from the first instead of having waited for the hard,
earnest labor of intellectual giants. And science has gone on, and
for us and for our pupils would still go on, only as accompanied with
numerous mistakes and disappointments.

What method shall we adopt in the teaching of science? It must
differ according to the age and capacity of the pupils. An excellent
modification of the method of original investigation may be arranged as
follows:

The children are put in possession of all facts relating to conditions,
the teacher explaining them as much as may be necessary. The experiment
is performed, the pupils being required to observe exactly what takes
place, the experiments selected being of such a nature that any previous
judgment as to what ought to occur is as nearly impossible as may be. We
predict from knowledge, real or supposed, of facts which are associated
in our minds with any new subject under consideration. Children often
know in a general, vague, and indefinite way that which, for the sake of
a full and systematic knowledge, we may desire them to study. What
they know will unconsciously modify their expectations, and their
expectations in turn may modify their observations. We are apt to
believe that happens which we expect will happen. There ought to be no
difficulty, however, in finding simple and appropriate experiments with
which the child is entirely unacquainted, and in which anything beyond
the wildest guess work is, for him, impossible. The principal use which