Decembeb 3, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



791 



to be found in the fact that the science 

 itself has made such rapid progress since 

 1876. This development of the science has 

 been paralleled by a remai-kable growth of 

 the spirit of scientific research and a large 

 increase in the niunber of specialists in 

 physics who are devoting their entire 

 time to investigation in this field alone. 

 Add to this the attitude of the universities 

 toward research in that they demanded re- 

 search work of their physicists as a pre- 

 requisite to academic promotion, and you 

 have all the elements necessary to crowd 

 more and more subject matter into the 

 preparatory course. The teachers in the 

 schools caught the spirit of the universi- 

 ties, and all hands turned to a well-inten- 

 tioned but, as it has proved, a futile effort 

 to introduce into the elementary course as 

 much of the precision, the rigor and the 

 abstraction of the research laboratory as 

 was possible. The highly specialized sci- 

 ence of physics became king and the abili- 

 ties and needs of the pupils were lo-st 

 sight of. 



This development was fostered by text- 

 book writers, publishers and apparatus 

 dealers. Every new text had to go its 

 competitors one better in the matter of 

 being "up-to-date," in order that the 

 publishers' agents might have new "talk- 

 ing points" with which to allure the un- 

 wary superintendent or school-board mem- 

 ber. No publisher would print a book 

 that did not contain accounts of all the 

 recent discoveries and a few more, be- 

 caase the publishers had found out that 

 teachers would turn down a book because 

 it did not contain X-rays or wireless teleg- 

 raphy, ions, electrons or radium. Up-to- 

 date-ne.ss was considered the first virtue. 



Another example of this increase in the 

 amount of subject matter may serve to 

 leave this first point clear in mind. The 

 1888 edition of Gage's "Introduction to 



Physical Science" contains 340 pages and 

 321 numbered paragraphs. Under the 

 pre&sure of up-to-date-ness, Gage wrote an 

 enlarged book called the "Principles of 

 Physics," and the latest revised edition of 

 this book, 1907, contains 529 pages and 

 562 numbered paragraphs. Thus we see 

 that, although the abilities and tastes of 

 the pupils have remained fairly constant, 

 and although little effort has been made 

 to prepare them for the work by teaching 

 more elementary physical science in the 

 grammar .schools, the amount of subject 

 matter that we are trying to teach them in 

 the same time has increased from 50 to 60 

 per cent. This increase alone is enough to 

 make it impo.ssible for the teacher now to 

 do thorough work, without regard to the 

 nature of the topics added or to the con- 

 tent of the subject matter. This one thing 

 is enough seriously to have impaired the 

 eflSciency of the science work. 



Nevertheless, this increase in the amount 

 of the subject matter is by no means the 

 only factor that has been at work in ren- 

 dering the .science teaching less effective 

 than it might be. "When we compare the 

 subject matter taught thirty j'ears ago 

 with that in the modem texts as to con- 

 tent, we find again a marked contrast. 



Thus by comparing the topics under 

 "a" in the index of the Rolfe and Gillett 

 with those in the index of the latest of the 

 new texts, that of Adams, I find but two 

 topics in the former not treated in the 

 latter; and thirty in the new book not 

 found in the old. The old topics omitted 

 are annealing and artesian wells. The 

 most important new topics introduced 

 are aberration, chromatic and spherical; 

 absolute temperature, absolute units, ac- 

 celeration, air thermometer, alternating 

 currents, ammeters, astigmatism, Atwood 

 machine. These few give an idea of the 

 sort of things that have been added. A 



