January 23, 1908J 



NA TURE 



283. 



in an excursion to Crowhurst. Open-air work gives a 

 genuine foundation to tlie study of geography, and thereby 

 "that essential factor, the map, can be properly understood. 



Pl-blic Schools' Scienxe Masters' Association. 

 The salient features of the annual meeting, held at 

 Westminster School on January 14, were :— (i) the address 

 from Prof. H. A. Miers, F.R.S. ; (2) the mstructive ex- 

 hibition of apparatus ; (3) the discussion on the position of 

 mechanics in the physics course ; (4) the repeated expression 

 of the need for cooperation between the masters responsible 

 for mathematics and physics respectively. 



Prof. Miers took as his subject the order in which 

 scientific ideas should be presented. He deprecated any 

 rigid division of science into subjects, and believed that 

 harm had resulted from attempts to keep mathematics, 

 physics, and chemistry apart from each other, and to 

 confine them to separate teachers. He desired to leave 

 freedom to the individual teacher as regards method, but 

 felt that as regards order there should be more system 

 in our science teaching. In other subjects there was an 

 advantage in having a recognised order based upon pro- 

 longed experience, and science should stand upon the same 

 level as languages and mathematics in our schools, and 

 should form an integral part of any liberal education. 

 It was not easy to find out at the moment what the pupil 

 understood of the instruction, and where he had succeeded 

 in analysing the difficulty of a pupil he generally dis- 

 covered 'that he himself was at fault in having_ presented 

 ideas in the wrong order, and assumed something which 

 was not yet familiar to the pupil. He found a useful guide 

 to the proper order in the succession in which the ideas of 

 a science had been developed in its past history. 



Prof. Miers advocated nature-study in the wide sense ; 

 the boy should be taught to notice' the ordinary objects 

 and events of his own \vorld, and to draw scientific nourish- 

 ment therefrom, including in his intelligent observation all 

 that was going on around, and not merely the processes 

 of nature familiar in country life. If only the ordinary 

 boy could get into his head 'the notion that science was 

 the intelligent study of ordinary things, he would cease 

 to regard it as a mere educational task. It was unwise, 

 if not impossible, to teach chemistry and physics as in- 

 dependent subjects. In the preparatory school the boy 

 should be trained in observational work, which would 

 impart information useful in the experimental science that 

 was to come next. The systematic teaching at a public 

 school should from the outset be experimental, and the 

 spirit of inquiry should be cultivated, and scientific 

 dogmatism guarded against. 



Coming to the university teaching of science, we had 

 now to deal with mature minds, and the spirit of research 

 should absolutely dominate the teaching. There was 

 nothing better for encouraging research than natural 

 history, which was admirably suited for advanced study_ at 

 the university. Original papers were more stimulating 

 than text-books, and there is need for an English series 

 reproducing the original researches of highest importance, 

 perhaps with the translation of archaic expressions into 

 modern equivalents. Lectures should follow the historical 

 order, laboratory work the method of research. 



Prof. .Armstrong felt it to be a deplorable fact that 

 science had lost ground in public estimation. We felt the 

 absence of Huxley and Playfair, and it rested with the 

 public schools to carry the banner forward. The Davy- 

 Faradav laboratory had, with one exception, failed to 

 attract the gilded youth, fired with enthusiasm for science 

 by their work in public schools. We must teach so as to 

 excite more interest, so as to make that interest more 

 continuous and permanent, and so as to cultivate, not 

 powers of observation only, but the faculty of keen, in- 

 telligent criticism also. He held that Germany had 

 •achieved her position owing to the cultivation of originality 

 by her universities. 



The other papers read during the meeting were : — 

 fil the educational value of mechanics, by Mr. C. F. Mott 

 (Giggleswick') : (21 the teaching of practical mathematics, 

 bv Mr. H. Wilkinson (Durham^ ; (3) scheme for laboratory 

 work in physics, by Mr. Cuniming fRugbyl ; (4) a suitable 

 nhysics curriculum for the first and second years, bv Mr. 

 W; E. Cross (Whitgift) ; (:;) the compulsory teaching of 



NO. 1995, VOL. 77] 



elementary physics to junior forms, by Mr. J. M. \\ ad- 

 more (Ald'enham). 



In the course of the discussions, it was pointed out that 

 there is a great leakage from schools of boys who are 

 under the proper leaving age, and that such boys neces- 

 sarily receive little scientific education. There was no- 

 lack' of enthusiasm for science on the part of boys who 

 fulfilled the course of instruction. The fact that bovs 

 were promoted in many schools ^vithout regard to their 

 science work placed difficulties in the way, such as were 

 met by re-arranging the schools in sets in the case of 

 mathematics. The study of scientific mechanics rnight be 

 postponed until boys had obtained some experience in 

 general experimental physics ; practical work in heat could 

 be introduced earlier. ' Boys should be allowed to use 

 modern electrical plant, such as the cheaper voltmeters and 

 ammeters now available through being put on the market 

 for motorists. Mr. Cross advocated the abandonment of 

 the usual exercises in mensuration and Archimedes's prin- 

 ciple, and the substitution of a course of experimental con- 

 struction of working cranes, &c. He would devote the 

 first two years to such work, which stimulates interest 

 and leads to a grasp of principles, e.g. the inquiry into 

 the transmission of power by belts leads to true notions 

 about energy and friction. It is a pity that there was 

 little criticism of this interesting and unorthodox paper, 

 for there is no doubt that most boys want to know " how 

 it works"; moreover, the course which Mr. Cross out- 

 lined can readily fulfil Prof. Miers's requirement that th& 

 application of the instruction to everyday life should be 

 straightforward. The relative merits of working collec- 

 tively or individually in the laboratory were discussed, 

 and 'Mr. Cumming claimed that the former system proved 

 successful at Rugby. In summing up the discussion. Prof. 

 Miers remarked upon the extreme diversity of methods 

 adopted in different schools. 



The exhibition of apparatus attracted well-deserved 

 attention. Several dealers in apparatus, and some of the 

 leading publishers, sent extensive exhibits, but the most 

 gratifying, and in many respects the most instructive part 

 of the exhibition -was' the ingenuity of the home-made 

 contrivances sent from a good number of schools. We 

 must congratul.ate and thank those responsible, and par- 

 ticularly Mr. D. J. P. Berridge, to whose organisation 

 much of the success of this feature of the meeting _ was 

 due. There were so many items of interest that it is 

 impossible to describe them' all, and it seems invidious to 

 select. On the score of daring simplicity, we may perhaps 

 award the palm to a motor armature shown by Mr. 

 C. j. L. Wagstaff, which consisted of a bottle-cork, a 

 few turns of insulated wire, and a dozen pins. Dr. T. J. 

 Baker reached the acme of simplicity in his supports for 

 prisms, lenses, &c. These were mounted by being^ stuck 

 in their aoprotiriate positions into lumps of plasticine — 

 'joila tout ! We would suggest to the management the 

 advisability of printing a large number of copies of the 

 catalogue ;' they might be put on sale ; in any case their 

 wider diffusion' would help to improve exnerimental tr-ach- 

 ing bv simple apparatus of homely invention and make. 

 ' G. F. Daxiell. 



THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF MEDICINE AND 

 OTHER SCIENCES.' 



AN historical sketch, necessarily brief and inadequate, 

 of some of the principal phases in the reciprocal 

 relations between medicine and the physical sciences, up 

 to the time when the latter became fully independent at 

 the close of the seventeenth century, will show with what 

 propriety medicine has been called the " mother of the 



Physical science has derived from the Greeks no such 

 extensive records of sound observation and experience as 

 those which medicine has inherited from the_ writings of 

 Hippocrates and his followers. Physical theories embodied 

 in the speculations of the nature-philosophers concerning 

 the constitution and properties of matter furnished the 



1 From an aH<l-e« HHivered bv Dr. W. H. Welch, professor of patho- 

 1 T 1 u 1 :..^ Tr.,:,.orc;tv RaUimore 3c the retinne president of tne 



logy. Tohn-; Hopkins University, Baltimore, .^^ inc ic " -r r»*n<.mVi«»*- 



Association for the Advancement of Science, at Chicago, December 



