400 



NATURE 



[January i8, 



;I -.' 



th« help of fl hint or two to put him on the right track, 



Holve thi'iri for himself. 



I nm told that nt u tichool which of Intp Vf^nrs has b«cn 

 onr of the most sucrcssful in turnin(( out fjood mathe- 

 matirinns, the older boys an- undfr the impression that 

 thrv get very little tenrhinfj in the hijjher parts of mathe- 

 matics ; they work in a class-room tojijether nt the text- 

 book, abuse its obscurity, argue out with each other what 

 it really means, while the master appears to take very 

 little part in the proceeding's ; as a matter of fact, if hi* 

 se»-s that a wrong conclusion is likely to b- come to by 

 the little parliament, by an apparently casual remark he 

 gives the argument a push in the right direction. This 

 s«'ems to me the very best kind of education wh<n the 

 boys are of fairly equal ability. 



Work of this kind, when the student tries to puzzle out 

 his own diflicultics, takes time, and the student cannot 

 cover the ground so quickly as when his difficulties are 

 solved for him by his teacher as fast as they arise. If 

 the examination for which he is preparing covers a wide 

 range of subjects, he is almost compelled, or at any rate 

 he is very strongly tempted, to adopt the quicker and 

 easier methwls. The temptation is especially strong in 

 the case of students of science. For the Natural Sciences 

 Tripos at Cambridge, for example, the majority of the 

 students take four subjects in part i. ; there is really no 

 need for them to do so, and the better students are in 

 many cases strongly advised by their tutors to take only 

 three ; if they did so I feel sure they would not prejudice 

 their chance of getting a first class. They think, however, 

 that it is safer to take four, and as playing for safetv is 

 a very characteristic feature of the modern undergraduate, 

 the majority of them take this course. .As thev have now 

 to do a very large amount of practical work in each sub- 

 ject, the study of four subjects means if they take the 

 first part of the tripos in the second year that the whole 

 of their mornings and many of their afternoons are spent 

 in lecture-rooms and laboratories, and that they have very 

 little time to spend in thinking quietly over their subject. 

 It may be said that they have the vacations in which to 

 do this. But. as a matter of experience, it is found, I 

 think, that this habit is either continuous or else non- 

 existent ; it is not one that can be flung aside in term 

 time and then resumed as soon as term is over. \\'e can- 

 not all emulate the heroes in the Bab Ballads : — 



These men were men who could 



Hold liberal opinions, 

 On Sundays they were good, 



On week days they were minions. 



It is, I think, most important that they should form 

 this habit of independent thought at school, for if they 

 have not done so the conditions are not verv favourable 

 for them to do so at the university. 



The popularity of science, the great increase in the 

 numbers attending lessons, lectures, and laboratories 

 makes it more and more difficult to arrange that our 

 students shall have the opportunity of thinking out their 

 own difficulties and developing their independence and 

 power of relying on their own resources. Let me contrast 

 the conditions under which I began in the 'seventies the 

 study of practical physics at the Owens College, Man- 

 chester, with those which prevail at the Cavendish Labora- 

 tory at the present time. When I was a student there 

 were perhaps a dozen working at practical physics in the 

 laboratory ; there was no need for any elaborate organisa- 

 tion ; we used to work at an experiment until we were 

 satisfied we had done as much as we could, by what 

 we thought, generally erroneously, were improvements on 

 the methods shown to us, and acquired in this way a 

 lively interest in our subject and some facilitv in devising 

 experiments to test various points which arose in the 

 course of our work. This, I think, is the best kind of 

 laboratory training it is possible to have, but it is only 

 available when the number of students is small. If we 

 adopted it at the Cavendish Laboratory, where last term 

 there were above three hundred students doing practical 

 physics, the result would be chaos : while the students 

 would not learn physics, independence, or anvthing except 

 proficiencv in free fightinj^. With such numbers elaborate 

 organisation and preparation are unavoidable, and we have 

 necessarily to limit ourselves to trying to make the 



NO. 2203, VOL. 88] 



elementary demonttrationf teach the students how to mak*- 

 accurate mea«ur»>m<-nti«, to "'"• i»^..." •• ■^-vuvlmlge of 

 method*, and to mak»' the wrative as 



posnibli- of the fundam«>ntal j : j 



I think, however, that in home of our w hooU th- 

 number of boy« taking practical work is ttmall «iiough t<. 

 mak»' the other method possible, and when this is th-- 

 case 1 would urge as strongly as I can the danger of 

 excessive organisation and the importance of •' ' - 



much as possible the indep<>ndence and 

 their pupils, and I think they might do w. 

 a small number of subjects. 



I cannot refrain from alluding to the remarkable .ii.<l 

 very gratifying increase which has taken place in the last 

 few years in mathematical knowledge possessed by the 

 students of science sent up from the schools, and is '■^<-- 

 ing rapidly from year to year. When I first vn \ 

 the Cavendish Laboratory the knowledge of matheni..:. 

 possessed by many of the students was so meagre that f 

 had to start classes to teach them the elements of the 

 differential calculus ; that class has gone on until th*- 

 present year ; but the number who required such teach- 

 ing has diminished so rapidly during the last few years 

 that I have decided it will not be necessary to continue 

 these classes any longer. 



In conclusion, I would like to ofTer a suggestion, which 

 I make with great diffidence, but it is one which, if it were 

 possible to carry out, would increase the efficiency of the 

 student, especially in after life, to a very confeiderahle 

 extent. I mean, would it be possible to te.T " ' 

 students enough German to enable them to tr 



ordinary text-book or pa|>er? I do not ask ; ..... 



should all know German — that I realise is. at present, 

 impracticable. I do not ask that they should be able ti; 

 write German, or even pronounce it, but merely that they 

 should be able to make sense of a straightforward 

 sentence. 



l^NIVERSITY AM) EDVCATIOSAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



It is announced in The Jewish Chronicle thai a wealthv 

 Jew, a native of India, has bequeathed a sum of So.ooo/. 

 for the endowment of a Jewish college in Jerusalem. 

 This sum is likely to form the nucleus of an endowment 

 for a university in Palestine. 



Prof. J. G. Hibben has been elected president of 

 Princeton University in succession to Dr. Woodrow 

 Wilson. Prof. Hibben has been professor of logic at 

 Princeton University since 1893, and is known as the 

 author of works on logic and philosophy. 



^ It is announced that Sir Charles Chadwyck-Heaky, 

 K.C., who is a member of the governing body of Cran- 

 leigh School, has expressed his desire to present a labora- 

 tory to the school, and the offer has been accepted by the 

 governors. The work has been put in hand, and it is 

 expected that the cost will be about 4000/. 



\ Reuter telegram from Cape Town on January t^ 

 states that, s|>eaking at Moorresburg. Mr. F. S. Malan'T 

 Minister of Education, said he hoped to introduce and pass 

 in the forthcoming session of Parliament a Bill dealing 

 with higher education and the foundation of a univer>iiv. 

 Mr. Malan expects shortly to receive from Messrs. 

 Wernher, Beit and Co., who have given half a million 

 sterling towards the university scheme, a notification of 

 their acceptance of the Bill, which will then be published. 



.At a meeting of the executive committee of the govern- 

 ing body of the Imperial College of Science and Tech- 

 nology, held on Friday last. Prof. W. A. Bone. F.R.S., 

 professor of applied chemistry (fuel and metallurgy). Ini- 

 versity of Leeds, was appointed professor of fuel and re- 

 fractory materials in a new department of chemical tech- 

 nology now being established in the Imperial College at 

 South Kensington. He will take up his new duties at the 

 Imperial College about September of this year. 



In connection with the Francis Galton Laboratory for 

 National Eugenics, a course of eight lectures will be given 



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