December 3, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



793 



in the content of the ideas presented, or of 

 the point of view from which the phenom- 

 ena are now presented, would alone ac- 

 count for the decrease in the success and 

 efficiency of physics teaching in the past 

 decade. Elementary physics has lost much 

 of its pragmatic value and become some- 

 what rationalistic because of its devotion 

 to various and sundry "absolutes." 



But besides the increase in the amount 

 of subject matter and the "absolute" un- 

 intelligibility of some of it to beginners, 

 there is a third great and important fact 

 in the history of physics teaching in Amer- 

 ica. This fact is that the method of pre- 

 senting the subject has changed in several 

 important ways. We can get a good idea 

 of the condition of physics teaching in 

 the secondary schools in the seventies 

 from two bulletins that were issued by the 

 National Bureau of Education in 1880 and 

 1884, respectively. The firet was edited by 

 Professor F. "W. Clarke, of the University 

 of Cincinnati, and it contains reports con- 

 cerning the teaching of phj'sics and chem- 

 istry from 176 public and 431 private sec- 

 ondary schools. From a study of this re- 

 port it appears that in 1880 there were but 

 four of the 607 schools giving a full year 

 of work in physics with laboratory experi- 

 ments by the pupils. Fifty-three were 

 giving full year courses with experiments 

 by the teacher. One hundred and thirteen 

 were giving courses in physics with no ex- 

 periments at all— merely text-book recita- 

 tions. The rest had courses for part of a 

 year only, but almost all had some physics. 



It is not necessary to make any comment 

 on the difference between this situation 

 and the present one, where practically 

 every school has its laboratory work bj' the 

 pupils. This change from practically no 

 individual laboratory work to laboratory 

 work for everybody means, as every sci- 

 ence teacher must see at a glance, a tre- 



mendous advance. It is also clear that the 

 college entrance requirements have been 

 of the greatest assistance in hastening this 

 progress. Beginning in 1886 with the 

 Harvard requirements, and followed up in 

 1897 by the definition of the unit requir- 

 ing laboratory work by the committee on 

 College Entrance Requirements of the 

 National Educational Association, the col- 

 leges have contributed all that in them lay 

 toward the acquisition of this very valuable 

 a.sset for science teaching. A detailed ac- 

 count of how the college requirement was 

 framed and how it has been altered has 

 been given by Professor E. H. Hall, of 

 Harvard, in his book on the "Teaching of 

 Phj-sics, " and more recently in his con- 

 tribution to Science for October 29, so that 

 we need not pause for this now. Suffici' it 

 here to point out that physics teaching 

 owes a great debt of gratitude to the col- 

 leges generally, but to Professor Ilall and 

 Harvard in particular, for this aetiuisition 

 of laboratories for physical .science in the 

 schools. By the introduction of the labora^ 

 tory work the teaching of .science has beru 

 enormously benefited; and, had the teach- 

 ers held the subject matter of the course 

 down to the comprehension of the pupils, 

 there would doubtless be no cause for com- 

 plaint now. 



The second of these bulletins fi-om the 

 bureaii of education was edited by Pro- 

 fessor C. K. Wead, of the University of 

 Michigan, and deals largelj^ with methods 

 of instruction. It Contains replies to a cir- 

 cular letter is.sued by the bureau, a discus- 

 sion of these replies, a number of reports 

 on physics work abroad, some valuable 

 suggestions on teaching of physics, and a 

 list of forty-seven topics and fortj'-two ex- 

 periments, which were regarded as funda- 

 mental for everj' elementary physics 

 course. It is interesting to note that this 

 li.st, issued in 1884 by the U. S. Bureau of 



