England an Example for Germany

Abstract

WE are accustomed in matters relating to school teaching to have German methods and results eulogised by contrast with our own, so that it is especially gratifying for once to find the tables turned. The author is a leading exponent of science teaching in his country, a schoolmaster of high repute in secondary schoolwork, and he has written this elaborate work frankly on the model of teaching that he witnessed at Harrow and other English secondary schools; and he has produced an account which in some respects is more thorough and comprehensive than anything we have in England. The only work to compare with it is the American book by Smith and Hall which appeared two years ago, and that deals only with chemistry and physics, while Dr. Dannemann covers biology as well. One half of the work is taken up with detailed recommendations for class teaching in branches of natural science, viz. physics, chemistry, mineralogy, geology, astronomy, and biology, then chapters are added on the equipment of laboratories, the preparation and use of text-books, the training of science teachers, the treatment of scientific ideas in the order of their historical development; then some half-dozen appendices give documents taken partly from the regulations of the Kultus Ministerium in Prussia and in other German States, side by side with resolutions adopted by associations of science teachers, in which no doubt Dr. Dannemann is a leading personality.

Der naturwissenschaftliche Unterricht auf praktisch-heuristischcr Grundlage.

By Dr. F. Dannemann. Pp. xii + 366. (Hanover and Leipzig: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1907.) Price 6 marks.