482 



NATURE 



[April 22, 1875 



Stane, with its inscription said to be in memory of Vctta, 

 the son of Hengist ? Was it the Newton Stone, with its 

 inscription as yet altogether unread ? Was it Maeshowe, 

 with its runic records ? or the Ring of Brogar ? or the 

 Stones of Stennis, with all their romantic associations? 

 In Ireland, was it the Giant's Ring, near Belfast ? Was 

 it the curious fortification known as Staigue Fort ? Was 

 it the remarkable tumulus of Newgrange, with its curious 

 decorations ? Was it the ruins of Teltain, or the remains 

 of the hill of Tara associated so intimately with the 

 earliest of Irish records ? He hoped that the bill would 

 be rejected neither by Englishmen nor Scotchmen ; and 

 Irishmen surely would not grudge a slight and almost 

 infinitesimal expense for the preservation of these frag- 

 ments of early Irish history. Indeed, the expense entailed 

 by the measure would be very trifling ; the amount, more- 

 over, would be settled by the Treasury and controlled by 

 the House of Commons. Those monuments had passed 

 through great dangers. They had been spared by Roman 

 soldiers, by Biitons, Saxons, Danes, and Normans ; they 

 were respected in days of comparative poverty and bar- 

 barism ; in thefc days of enlightenment and civilisation, 

 of wealth almost beyond the dreams of avarice, they were 

 in danger of being broken up for a profit of a few prunds 

 or removed because they cumbered the ground. If the 

 House allowed them to be destroyed, they could never be 

 replaced. It was said that the bill would interfere with 

 the rights of property. What rights t The right of 

 destroying interesting national monuments. That was 

 the only right that would be interfered with. It was not 

 incidental to the bill, it was no drawback in the bill, it 

 was the very object of the measure. It was really, how- 

 ever, the rights of destruction, not the rights of possession, 

 which it touched. It was now for the House to deter- 

 mine whether it would exercise on behalf of the nation 

 the right to preserve those monuments ; whether it would 

 maintain the right of individuals to destroy, or the right 

 of the nation to preserve. He hoped the House would 

 agree to the second reading of the bill, for it would 

 surely be a shame and a disgrace to allow those ancient 

 monuments to perish." 



We are sure Parliament, if it passes the bill in its 

 entirety, will have not only the approval of the nation, but 

 the admiration of educated men all the world over. 



PRACTICAL PHYSICS 

 hiirodiiction to Experimental Physics. By A. F. Wein- 

 hold, Professor in the Royal Technical School at 

 Chemnitz. Translated and edited by B. Loewy, 

 F.R.A.S. With a Preface by Prof. G. C. Foster, 

 F.R.S. (London : Longmans, 1875.) 

 T N English schools of the present day the teaching of 

 ^ Experimental Physics is, with few exceptions, cither 

 neglected or abused. Yet there can be little doubt that 

 this subject ought to be an integral part of the secondary 

 education of every boy and girl. Its usefulness merely 

 as knowledge that touches us at every point in daily life, 

 and that finds its development intimately associated with 

 many modern trades and professions, is a tangible argu- 

 ment in its favour. But it is as a means of education, 

 rather than as a vehicle of /«j/r«c//(i;/, that physics should 

 be taught in schools. And this because of its high power — 

 when properly taught — of educating individual judgment, 

 by training the senses to habits of accurate observation and 

 the mind to clear and precise modes of thought. Added 

 to all this, practical physics confers the benefit, by no 

 means to be lightly regarded, of giving to the hands the 

 power of useful skill. 



Prof. Foster well remarks, in his excellent preface to 

 the work before us : " In the study of physics we arc 

 obliged not only to learn a large number of new facts, 

 but also to adopt new habits of learning ; while we have 

 at the same time to accustom ourselves to attach accu- 

 rately defined meanings to the terms employed in dis- 

 cussing physical phenomena, and to reason about them 

 with mathematical strictness, and often by the help of 

 technical mathematical methods. These characteristics 

 of the study of physics give to it a value, as a means of 

 training in habits of exact thinking, which probably no 

 other study possesses in the same degree ; but at the 

 same time they make this study more than usually diffi- 

 cult, especially to beginners." 



It is this felt difficulty, no doubt, that largely contri- 

 butes to the exclusion of physics from the general curri- 

 culum of our schools and colleges. And where physics 

 is introduced, it is, we fear, too often badly taught, for its 

 method of teaching is misunderstood. It generally pro- 

 ceeds upon the old lines of the black board and text- 

 book. Nor is this to be wondered at. For if a school- 

 master be really anxious to teach experimental physics 

 thoroughly, he is staggered at the multiplicity and cost 

 of the apparatus involved, and out of this difficulty our 

 text-books have hitherto shown him no way of escape. 



Where experimental science is honestly attempted, 

 chemistry is found to be less formidable ; it also abounds 

 in useful practical class-books, and so this subject is far 

 more widely taught than physics. To many parents and 

 schoolmasters chemistry has become the embodiment of 

 all their thoughts of science. Fumes, explosions, and 

 mess, are, to a large section of the public, inevitably asso- 

 ciated with their idea of natural knowledge in general, and 

 experimental knowledge in particular. The replacement 

 of physics by chemistry in schools is much to be regretted 

 on educational grounds ; for, so far as the present writer's 

 experience goes, it is decidedly adverse to making che- 

 mistry the first or chief part of the scientific training 

 of youth. Nor is there much likelihood of seeing 

 experimental physics generally taught in schools until 

 there are good text-books on practical physics that will 

 enable the student to construct his own apparatus as he 

 proceeds. 



On these grounds chiefly we are glad to welcome the pre- 

 sent translation of Prof. Weinhold's " Vorschule derExperi- 

 mental Physik." By following the full and excellent direc- 

 tions given by Prof. Weinhold, any intelligent lad can be 

 his own instrument maker ; and besides the pleasure of 

 construction, he will acquire a sound and extensive 

 acquaintance with the elements of physics by the time he 

 has carefully gone through the book. 



Knowledge thus obtained will be ineffaceably written 

 on the memory, and its worth will be far greater than a 

 corresponding expenditure of time spent in merely reading 

 several of the ordinary class-books. Nor can there be 

 any doubt, as Prof. Foster says, that " whenever this or 

 some similar work comes to be commonly adopted in 

 schools, physics will be in a fair way of becoming one 

 of the most popular as well as most useful parts of school- 

 work, instead of being, as it too often now is, less liked 

 and worse taught than almost any other subject." 



One great merit of Prof. Weinhold's hand-book is its 

 great detail. Nothing is more provoking than the vague 



