CUI.TURAL VALUES OF PHYSICS^ 



By David Dietz 

 Science Editor of the Scripps-Hotcard Netrspapers 



There was a time when the classics formed the cuUural bond that 

 united educated men throughout the world. Every high-school boy 

 read his Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil in Latin, his Xenophon and 

 Homer in Greek. He continued in college with Horace and the 

 other Latin poets and made the acquaintance of the Greek drama- 

 tists and philosophers. Thus all educated men were bound together 

 by a common educational experience and their thinking was rooted 

 in a common source of inspiration, the classical learning of ancient 

 Rome and Greece. 



With the rise of the twentieth century, the classics lost their hold. 

 I do not suppose that there is a college in America which lists a 

 knowledge of Greek among its entrance requirements. Many col- 

 leges, including, of course, the scientific schools, do not require Latin. 



The dethronement of the classics is so nearly complete today that 

 it is doubtful if the young student, stepping upon a college campus 

 for the first time, realizes the change which has taken place in the 

 structure of education. I carry a sharp picture of the changing 

 process since it was my interesting fortune to live through it. 



The decline of the classics has, unquestionably, been a byproduct 

 of the rise of science. Many educators, however, have lamented the 

 fact that there is no longer a common cultural tie among learned 

 men. For with the rise of science has come the rise of specialties 

 and with the rise of specialties has come a division of tongues. 

 Each specialist speaks a language of his own and this fact has 

 sometimes been a handicap to understanding and a stumbling block 

 to progress. 



It is inevitable that each specialist must pursue his own line of 

 attack farther and farther into the frontier of the unknown. It is, 

 therefore, equally inevitable that these pioneers must draw away 



1 Address given at the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Conference of CoUege Physics 

 Teachers, Pennsylvania State College, October 14, 1938. Reprinted by permission from 

 Journal of Applied Pliysics, vol. 10, February 1939. 



189 



