Abstract
IT was a fortunate circumstance that at each of the three elections of the School Board for London science has been represented. On the first occasion Marylebone gave Prof. Huxley a seat at the board, and at the second and third elections Chelsea has sent Dr. Gladstone as one of its representatives. To the former was due, in great measure, the Code of Regulations in which the subjects of instruction were laid down. To the latter has fallen the task of bringing them into a systematic and practical form. The Committee, of which Prof. Huxley was the chairman, determined that there must be given, in infant schools, “object lessons of a simple character, with some such exercise of the hands and eyes as is given in the Kindergarten system”; and in boys' and girls' schools, “systematised object lessons embracing in the six school years a course of elementary instruction in physical science, and serving as an introduction to the science examinations which are conducted by the Science and Art Department.” The time-tables of all the schools under the Board are made to conform to these requirements; the walls of the class-rooms are hung with illustrations in natural history and other diagrams; and in many of the schools boxes of objects are also to be found. Many of the teachers, especially those trained by the Home and Colonial Society, endeavour to carry out the regulations as fully as practicable; but hitherto the scheme has worked very irregularly, and there has generally occurred a break of continuity on the children passing from the infants' departments to the upper schools. The Board's Inspectors, who are required to report in all cases on object teaching, have often had to bear testimony to this defect.
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Science Teaching in London Board Schools . Nature 20, 117–118 (1879). https://doi.org/10.1038/020117a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/020117a0