ABSTRACT
This chapter considers that if we are to think usefully about 'science' in the primary school, we must first of all sort out with care the different things we currently mean by this term. When our children enter the primary school the basic learning drives are as a rule still vigorously active. In most children the basic active learning drives are mainly relegated to their out-of-school life, and very often survive only in a very superficial and limited form. As language becomes more and more available to the child, from the latter part of the second year onward, we know that the scope of his mental life is further vastly enriched. In a children pre-school environment, the opportunities for active exploration and discovery, after the breathless first few years when everything around was new, tend to get fewer and more restricted.
