Re ee at Teele, thee eee 
Gye pis : 4 : 
SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 67 
IT believe that a violent reaction is bound to come against this 
extreme type of vocational education if it is ever accepted for 
trial by the American people. But I also believe that the 
present inclination to accept for a trial this extreme type of 
vocational education is a well-merited rebuke, at least so far as 
physics is concerned, for the kind of science instruction we 
have been dealing out to our high-school students. We shall 
have our rebuke, I fear, in good measure. May we profit by it 
but at the same time I trust that we may never agree that the 
narrow, scanty, purely mercinary training in science, a train- 
ing intended merely to meet the demands of a specific trade, is 
an adequate training in science for the coming citzenshp of 
America. Such a training in science can no more prepare the 
masses for citizenship in a democracy than did the abstract, 
so-called logical training in science, which we have indulged in 
so largely during the past quarter of a century, prepare the 
masses for earning a living. 
Somewhere between these two extremes must lie the happy 
mean. The high-school course in physics almost universally 
offered in the past has consisted of some two hundred or three 
hundred physical principles, abstractly stated and inadequately 
illustrated. Many of those principles have no essential rela- 
tion to the daily life of the pupil. The laboratory work has 
generally consisted of blind and often unsuccessful attempts to 
manipulate with manual dexterity certain apparatus the like 
of which was never seen outside of the laboratory. The hun- 
dreds of set problems have usually been equally remote from 
the pupil’s life experiences. The physics possible under the 
provisions of the Smith-Hughes Act will be found in limited 
quantities in the course in general science and possibly in some 
additional cases where physical principles are clearly required 
for an understanding of some process in a trade or occupation. 
No opportunity will be offered for the study of physics for the 
purpose of giving the student an understanding of or a mastery 
over his physical environment. 
I deem it quite unnecessary that any argument be made be- 
fore this body to show the necessity of disseminating as widely 
as possible knowledge concerning the fundamental principles 
of physics. If any one of the sciences is more fundamental than 
