Abstract
THE inclusion of the history of science in the Jcurriculum of higher educational institutions, although very belated, is on many grounds warmly to be welcomed, and there appears to be no reason why its complement, the history of science teaching, should not also be given a place, particularly in the time-table of the future science teacher. At first sight it seems somewhat strange to speak of the history of science teaching, unless we use the word ‘science’ in a very wide sense; for the teaching of positive, experimental science is of such recent growth that it can scarcely claim to have a history; but what it lacks in age it makes up in importance, at least as a sidelight on the development of the scientific spirit. This is evidently the view of Miss Turner, who, in a volume recently published upon science teaching in England, has devoted only about one-half of her text to the history of teaching proper; her aim has been “to indicate in outline the growth of the scientific spirit in England, and the relationship of that growth to the development of a system of education into which the teaching of science gradually became incorporated.” For this reason she transports us back in time to Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and Descartes, whose eminence as philosophical thinkers and writers was in no way matched by their achievements as scientific investigators, and who in the light of modern developments can scarcely be regarded as science teachers.
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References
History of Science Teaching in England By D. M. Turner . Pp. x + 208. (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1927.) 7s.6d.net.
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Science Teaching in England1. Nature 121, 125–126 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/121125a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/121125a0