160 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the curious manifestations of frost, fire, and electricity and magnetism. 

 I remember how glibly we recited portions of natural philosophy where 

 the author forgot his grim mood for a moment, his triangles and 

 square roots, and explained in a simple manner why the rising moon 

 appeared so large between the small branches of a wood, and why fog 

 came up the bay when the sun went down. When we succeeded in 

 getting the right answer to a problem we were elated and began to 

 think that natural philosophy was not so difficult to study, after all ; 

 but these moods of elation were too often succeeded by those of black- 

 est night and incendiary desires. In looking back, the thought comes 

 to us that there must have been something radically wrong in such 

 teaching ; for the subject of the laws of the physical universe has 

 such infinite possibilities and contains so much that can stimulate the 

 imagination of even young children, that any method which represses, 

 or does not encourage a child's desire to know the reason of things, 

 must be radically wrong. 



It must not be supposed, however, that the picture we have pre- 

 sented has not its bright side : there are always teachers who are espe- 

 cially interested in physical science, and who excite an interest in the 

 subject among their pupils. The hour of the lecture on physics is 

 looked forward to by the pupils of some schools with great relish, and 

 some date their interest from the school exercises in this branch. 

 Generally speaking, however, most men who have more than the ordi- 

 nary knowledge of science have had their enthusiasm awakened out of 

 school, and by actually working with apparatus, or handling speci- 

 mens, have taught themselves. 



The opponents of the study of physics in the secondary schools 

 generally regard it as of less importance than the mathematical or 

 grammatical studies, and class it among what they regard as superflu- 

 ous subjects, the number of which has very much increased of late 

 years. Not a few of these remember the manner in which they were 

 taught, and have no desire that their children should repeat their 

 experience. It is very natural also that the teacher whose training has 

 been exclusively literary should be indisposed to teach a subject like 

 physics, which requires a certain facility with apparatus and some 

 inventiveness which a purely literary training has the effect of obscur- 

 ing and even crushing out. Who has not seen an excellent teacher in 

 the languages or even in mathematics fail completely before a class of 

 boys and girls in showing some simple experiment ? It is very natural 

 that he should fail, for this facility and inventiveness of which we have 

 spoken come, except to the few, only by practice and from an early 

 habit of observation. More time also is consumed in getting ready 

 for one lecture or exercise in physics than in six recitations in the 

 straightforward subjects of language and mathematics. A refractory 

 piece of brass, a wire wanting here and there, a shrunken bit of blad- 

 der, a broken glass tube, may involve hours' labor for one who is gen- 



