STUDY OF PHYSICS IiV SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 163 



The method of instruction in physical science, therefore, in the 

 secondary grades of schools, seems to me to be too costly and not 

 sufficiently logical. The remedy does not consist in curtailing the 

 amount of attention paid to the subject in the lower schools, or in 

 relegating it to a more advanced period of education. It is more rea- 

 sonably embraced in leading teachers to seek simpler methods of in- 

 struction, simpler apparatus, and to avoid abstruse conceptions, and 

 the solution of mechanical problems for which mere formulas are 

 given. It would be well, also, if the best students are led to experi- 

 ment themselves, and are stimulated to observe. This is hardly pos- 

 sible in crowded grammar schools ; but the excellent little treatises of 

 Professor Mayer on experimental physics would lead many children, 

 under proper encouragement from their teachers, to try simple experi- 

 ments at home. 



An ideal method of teaching physics in the secondary grade of 

 schools would consist in developing the whole subject from the stand- 

 point of motion, insisting upon the larger facts, correlating them as 

 far as possible, and neglecting special applications and special facts. 

 A number of interesting experiments can show that work must be done 

 in all cases to produce work, and that motion can be changed into heat, 

 and heat into motion. The student's mind should be tempted to take, 

 at the very beginning of his study of the subject, an extended view of 

 the application of the law of the conservation of energy. "While treat- 

 ing the subject of force, a little descriptive astronomy can be given 

 which will aid in stimulating the imagination. The subjects of heat 

 and acoustics can be taught purely under the head of mechanics, with 

 a variety of most interesting and simple experiments. I am inclined 

 to place the subject of electricity and magnetism under the same head ; 

 and, beginning with the fact that electricity is generated by a voltaic 

 cell, I should trace its simple manifestations until they conduct one to 

 the law that all motion can be converted into electricity, and that elec- 

 tricity can be entirely converted again into heat and light. Having 

 then shown that light can be produced by motion, the undulatory the- 

 ory can be cautiously introduced. As a review of the subject of phys- 

 ics, one could take as a text the impossibility of perpetual motion, and 

 enforce it with a variety of illustrations. The utility of the study of 

 physics in the grammar schools is often questioned, and indeed the 

 larger question of the value of scientific training except to the few in 

 the world at large is often mooted. There is no doubt that the study 

 of the humanities, in which the great story of men's deeds in the past 

 is recorded, will always prove the most fascinating to the majority ; 

 and it can be maintained with reason that those subjects which readily 

 excite an interest in the largest number will prove the readiest means 

 of intellectual training. Science is regarded by many scholars merely 

 as a practical branch of human knowledge, and, although its great 

 value in contributing to the good of the world is acknowledged, yet 



