mit; and we have the pleasure of possessing at present a truly liberal and intelligent Lord Provost, who is doing everything in his power, in some cases at his own expense, to promote education in all its departments, as well as every social improvement. I shall now give the opinion of two of the best judges in Europe, namely, that of MM. Demogeot and Montucci, as to the course of instruction taught in the Perth Academy. They say, "This grand development of science, of which we know of no other example in Scotland out of the universities, except perhaps for a year the High School of Edinburgh, is explained by the fact that the rectorship of the establishment has always been confided to the hands of distinguished mathematicians and natural philosophers. Such were, for example, Dr Robert Hamilton, late Professor of Natural Philosophy, and afterwards of Mathematics, in the University of Aberdeen; and Dr Anderson, to whom the city of Perth is indebted for gas and water, and who, after twenty-eight years of the rectorship, was promoted to the chair of Natural Philosophy in the University of St Andrews." They then proceed to pronounce by far too flattering an opinion of a third person, whose name I will not venture to mention here. "Also, among the professors of science who had not occupied the situation of rector of the academy, are found Dr Wallace, of the University of Edinburgh, whose treatise on conic sections is translated into many languages; Dr Ritchie, of the University of London, who first produced rotary motion by an electro-magnetic current; and Dr John Forbes, of Glasgow, author of an excellent treatise on the Differential Calculus, and many other men of great eminence." The next thing to which I will advert is the question, How far does the public avail itself of the high scientific instruction here provided? In answer to this, I may mention that the whole number attending Perth Academy during last session, as ascertained by Her Majesty's commissioners, Messrs Harvey and Sellar, who made very careful inquiries on this and every other subject, was nearly 400, and the number in the mathematical and scientific department, 58, afterwards increased to 60. A very large proportion of these

came from great distances daily by train; and were it not that our fees are somewhat high as a consequence of our slender endowments, our numbers would be doubtless much greater. If additional endowments were provided, our fees might be lowered; but there would be a risk in doing that to any great extent, as a great influx of the children of the artisan classes would lower the character of the institution, and drive away the higher classes altogether. This has taken place already in several parts of Scotland. Children of the higher classes have been sent away, principally on this account, from the local institutions where the education is of a very high order to seminaries at a distance, which are known to be inferior in every respect to our Scotch academies. Instead of lowering the fees, therefore, it would be better for government to select, by competition, from the primary schools those boys only who have a great capacity for science, and send them to the higher institutions, as that would give a much greater impulse to the education of the country. Lectures could be delivered to mechanics in the evening, as was formerly very much the case throughout the country. I lectured gratis on natural philosophy and chemistry for several winters in Perth, and had generally between two and three hundred of an auditory; and the result of my experience is that scientific lectures are not productive of the amount of good which one would anticipate. Men engaged in manual operations have usually little taste for home preparation, and all that can be communicated to them is a knowledge of results. This does not prepare the mind for further advancement, and therefore is unsuccessful in accomplishing the great object of a sound education. In these circumstances, I cannot agree to the resolutions as they now stand, and would therefore move as an amendment—

"(1.) That government should see that the humbler elements of science are taught in all primary schools, so far as that can be done by the teacher without neglecting other branches.

'(2.) That our academies and other burgh schools are placed in their proper position as great educational institutions as to subjects, apparatus, and salaries.

"(3.) That those boys who may prove by competition that they have a superior capacity for science are sent to the academies to complete their education in those branches which are considered most essential."

Dr ROBSON, Cupar, seconded Dr Miller's amendment.

Mr WYLIE, Prinlaws-I think elementary science should be taught in all schools. I would propose that, as we have already divided education in common things into different classes, the Society of Arts would be the proper body to instruct properly qualified gentlemen to draw up different elementary books or courses suitable to the different degrees of the education of the pupils, so that in all schools the pupils should know something of science; just as in reading, we have the First Reader, the Second Reader, and so on up to the Fifth Reading Book, so in science we should have the First and Second Elementary Books on Science, and so on. It is said that every educated person should know something of everything, and everything of something. Every child should know at least the nomenclature of science, and all schools ought to have some simple apparatus for teaching science, which can only be got if government would give its aid to all parish schools. At present there is no such thing as science regularly taught in our parish schools in any shape, except arithmetic. Now, I have no doubt that the pupils themselves would take great interest and delight in simple experiments in science, if the schools were provided with simple apparatus for teaching chemistry and practical mechanics. We all know how the simple yet great principles of science could be illustrated by apparatus provided for the purpose, and much good might be done if such apparatus could be manufactured in large quantities in a cheap form, just as matches and other articles are now made very cheap, because made in great quantities. It would be a great improvement in small parishes if the teachers gave lessons in the elements of science, and this could only be well done by means of properly graduated text-books, arranged according to the advancing capacity of the pupils, and proceeding from the alpha to the omega of science. Then, in winter,

lectures on chemistry and other branches of science, such as those delivered by Dr Stevenson Macadam, would be doubly useful, because the seed would fall on ground partially prepared. (Applause.) As to what is said about foreign competition in our arts and manufactures, I daresay we are not so far back as many people suppose, because it is evident from the patent list that there must be a vast amount of practical talent in the country. And no country has ventured, as we have done, to invite competition by throwing open their ports to the whole world. (Applause.)

Dr DONALDSON, Rector of the Edinburgh High SchoolI feel great pleasure in being present at this meeting. I am a classical scholar, devoting my life to the study of classics; but at the same time I have had the advantage of a good Scotch University education, and that implies a good year's study of natural philosophy, a good year's study of natural history, and other cognate branches; and I think that classical scholars in Scotland will be universally of opinion that, however important they may deem classical study as a means of training, they must also include science as a means of training. (Applause.) I have been very much struck with the resolutions here presented. They strike me with one fact, and it comes home to me more, as a teacher, than perhaps it would do to others. It seems to me that one of the applied sciences which should be taught is the science of education. (Applause.) If we had had in our Universities, or in the Universities of England, some exposition of the various elements of education as they can be clearly ascertained, I do not think we should have had, in framing our resolutions, to say, as we do in our first resolution, that "the time has arrived" when the principles of science should be taught to all classes of the community. The time arrived long ago (applause)-and the fact is this, as has been clearly maintained by every German writer who has written on education, that science contains elements of instruction which nothing else contains-that it contains them in a measure in which we cannot get them anywhere else; and therefore to omit science from any education is to omit one

very important element in the culture of the human race. (Applause.) I deem it of great importance, therefore, that we should have science both in our common schools and in our Grammar Schools, and in our Universities; and I think that we should do very well if, in having chairs of applied science, we had one on the science of education. One is struck very much with this in travelling through Germany. Speak to any cultivated gentleman in that country, and you will find none of those one-sided views on education which characterise us. There are some of us for science and some for classics-oue class saying that the one is all-important, and the other that the other is all-important; while the fact is, that they are both essential. (Applause.) As well might you say that a man should take food and no air, as to say that a man should have all classics and no science; and equally foolish it would be to say that a man should be all science, and know nothing at all of the development of the human race, of the history of mankind, of the development of the affections and emotions of his own nature. (Applause.) There is another thing that strikes me in connection with this meeting, which I think of some importance; and it is this, that somehow or other scientific men of this country. have got wide apart from classical men-somehow or other the moving elements of the country have got apart from the schools, and the men who have influence have not come so directly into contact with the schools and schoolmasters as they might have done. The consequence is, that often movements are going on in schools, and efforts are being made, which, if they had received the sanction of the high and influential men of the country, might result in something greater than they can do without that sanction. I will give you an instance in my own case. When I came to the High School I found my colleagues interested in scientific education, and, like other Scotchmen, they thought that science ought to be taught. They agitated this question before the public, and the result was that, as we declared ourselves to be deficient, the public believed that we were deficient, and they blamed us for all kinds of faults, and we have suffered from that. And now that we have got a very