NATURE 
421 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1871 


EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS 
The Elements of Physical Science. By Gustavus Hinrichs, 
A.M., Professor of Physical Scieace in the State 
University of Iowa, &c. In 3 vols. Vol. 1. Physics. 
(Griggs, Watson, and Day, Davenport, Iowa, U.S.) 
The School Laboratory of Physical Science. Edited by 
Gustavus Hinrichs. Nos. 1 and 2. 
se (Bos resolution of the Board of Regents in 1870, the 
Iowa State University has finally cut loose 
from the old college course. Only by this resolution, 
placing the elements of Physical Science at the very begin- 
ning of the course, can instruction in science become 
thorough. For the first time the students in physical 
science have been offered facilities not too inferior to 
those they have for ten years enjoyed in other branches of 
learning.” And with what result? ‘A marvel of studious 
industry there” (in the laboratory). “Young men and 
young women, boys and girls, measuring, weighing, test- 
ing, demonstrating, and recording fact upon fact in physics, 
that, at least in our school days, were pored over in a 
maze of bewilderment, in dryest of text-books, to be 
bolted in sections without question.” We trust that these 
important reforms in science teaching will prove conta- 
gious, and spread rapidly from the plateau of Iowa City 
to a region of even greater extent than the American con- 
tinent. Let us examine how Prof. Hinrichs is doing his 
part to attain this desirable result. 
Bearing in mind the important fact that science teaching 
in schools must be of a practical nature from beginning 
to end, the American Professor has sketched out in his 
“School Laboratory ” a plan which in the main will recom- 
mend itself to every competent teacher both in his own 
country and in ours. He proposes that the course shall 
be divided into three parts :—Rudiments, Elements, and 
General Principles. The Rudiments, which ought to be 
studied in the first year or so of a boy’s school life, embrace 
only prominent general facts and determinations, easily 
observed and measured with a sufficient (but limited) 
degree of accuracy ; together with the collective study of 
these facts, so as to bring to light several of the so-called 
laws. The Elements comprise the same subjects, treated 
however, more fully, and they should be completed “in 
the first year of the high school course.” The General 
Principles embrace mathematical deductions of a concise 
and simple nature, together with some of the most im- 
portant hypotheses of Physical Science; this portion 
should be completed in the last year of the high school 
course. Prof. Hinrichs is careful to point out that 
technical instruction in schools will not result in the 
advancement of science; but that a thorough general 
training in the phenomena of Nature, together with that 
already given in languages and mathematics, will lead to 
hitherto unimagined progress. 
Such is Prof. Hinrichs’ idea of a sound scientific train- 
ing, and a very admirable one it is. To carry it out we 
must strive after good teachers, capacious laboratories, 
VOL, IV. 

and trustworthy text-books. For our own part, we think 
that good teachers would not be found so scarce as 
is imagined, if there were only a genuine demand for 
them ; from a variety of causes, however, such as parental 
ignorance, false economy on the part of schools, and the 
ridiculous demands of public examiners, science has been 
kept, up to the present time, at the lowest possible ebb, 
except in the wealthiest of our public schools. It is de- 
plorable to think how few school laboratories there are in 
England which could in any way vie with that in the Iowa 
State University, where “ more than two hundred students 
have experimented within six months ;” and we fear that 
this state of things will continue for the most part unal- 
tered until the public examiners require a practical know- 
ledge of the sciences taught in schools. 
We are perhaps as deficient in good text-books as we 
are in laboratories ; and the reason for this is not far to 
seek. If a candidate is asked to explain a phenomenon 
or a class of phenomena, but is never required to exhibit 
it to the examiner, it is natural that he should content 
himself with learning the explanation without performing 
the experiment. Hence we find that the great majority of 
our text-books are merely explanatory, and not at all ex- 
perimental ; the phenomena are fully described and most 
ably explained, but the work which should be done in the 
laboratory to bring about these phenomena is forgotten 
by the teacher and the taught, because—¢t¢ zs not required 
at public examinations. It was therefore a bold under- 
taking for Prof. Hinrichs to bring out his “ Elements of 
Physics,” which is an excellent and almost unique speci- 
men of a practical treatise ; and we trust that it will meet 
with a reception worthy of it. 
In the first volume of this work, the student is taken, in 
about 150 pages, through a course of simple and easy ex- 
periments relating to Magnitude, Weight, Machines, Pro- 
perties of Matter, Light, Electricity, and Magnetism. 
Each operation is so clearly described that the book might 
almost be employed by a solitary student, and many of 
the experiments, we are convinced, not only could but 
ought to be performed by children at the very commence- 
ment of their school career. 
There is great difference of opinion as to whether quali- 
tative and quantitative observations of natural phenomena 
should be performed simultaneously or consecutively—we 
are disposed to hold the latter view rather tenaciously, 
believing that science should be one of the first subjects 
taughtin all schools. However, no one need be dismayed 
by the simple measurements of length, area, weight, and so 
oa, which form the main portion of Professor Hinrichs’ 
first chapter. The metrical system is taught by him in 
the only practicable manner, by means of actual measure- 
ments performed by the pupils themselves, without any 
reference, beyond a passing contemptuous notice, to the 
English system. The student is also familiarised with 
various forms of surfaces and solids, learns the manage- 
ment and the use of very simple apparatus, such as could 
well be provided in any village school, constructs his own 
measures of weight and length, makes numerous deter- 
minations, and enters his results in a journal. The ex- 
ercises in mensuration and co-ordinates are especially 
useful, both from a scientific and a mathematical point of 
view ; and the Journal of Experiments—blank pages at 
the end of the volume to be filled up by the pupil—is 
Zz 
