December 3, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



795 



get laboratories, the problems of education would 

 be solved. Is this true? Are we doing the best 

 that is possible with what we now have! Do the 

 results obtained justify the equipment and time 

 devoted to scientific study? I am not qualified to 

 answer these questions for the schools; but speak- 

 ing for the colleges, I may say that in my opinion 

 the results are frequently quite unsatisfactory. 

 The reason is that we have not yet learned how 

 to deal with the subject. It is not hard to teach 

 chemists chemistry, but it is very hard to teach 

 beginners something that is worth while about 

 chemistry in one year. 



The leading facts of the past history of 

 science teaching and the present problems 

 are now before you. 



We have not yet learned how to deal with our 

 subject. It is not hard to teach physicists physics, 

 but it is very hard to teach beginners something 

 that is worth while about physics in one j'ear. 



It is essentially an educational problem, 

 and, again quoting President Remsen's ad- 

 dress : 



Pedagogical problems are hard to solve — it is 

 very difficult to get sound conclusions. How can 

 we tell whether the scientific training is more 

 effective than that of the older type? This is a 

 problem that can not be solved by sitting down 

 and thinking about it; it can be solved only by 

 research and experiment. I do not myself know 

 whether scientific training as now conducted is 

 producing the results hoped for. Yet I am con- 

 vinced that scientific training, when properly con- 

 ducted, may be of the greatest value as an educa- 

 tional force. This is quite a different thing from 

 saying that that particular thing now known as 

 science training is of great value. It all depends 

 on how it is done. I have been experimenting to 

 find out how to teach chemistry, and it is the 

 most difficult experiment I have ever tried. 



"The problem can not be solved by sit- 

 ting down and thinking about it;" nor, 

 may I add, can it be solved by getting up 

 a perfect list of experiments, or, by writing 

 a text that shall be the most logical, ac- 

 curate and rigorous in the world. "The 

 problem can be solved only by research and 

 experiment and it is the most difficult ex- 

 periment I have ever tried." Progress in 

 the future depends, then, on our applying 



to our teaching problems the methods of 

 our subjects; for surely no one needs to 

 tell a body of science teachers what the 

 words research and experiment mean. 

 IIow, now, shall we go about it? 



The first step is to define specifically the 

 problem we are going to try to solve. The 

 problem as stated above, namely, to give 

 the pupils something worth while, is too 

 vague to permit of scientific experiment, 

 because it offers no method of testing the 

 work for the purpose of finding out 

 whether we have succeeded. What do we 

 mean by "something worth while," and 

 how shall we test the pupil to find out 

 whether he has acquired it? Those of our 

 parents who studied physics in the sixties 

 and seventies testify now that they ac- 

 quired from their school work in physics 

 an investigating attitude toward problems, 

 and clear enough ideas of some of the more 

 important principles to have helped them 

 considerably ever since. But such evidence 

 as this comes rather late, and, while it is 

 interesting and throws some light on the 

 subject, it is not the sort of evidence that 

 science demands. The problem must be 

 more specific and the results of the experi- 

 ments must be more definite. We ravist 

 therefore seek a more definite statement of 

 the problem, and this necessitates first a de- 

 cision as to what the purpose of the teach- 

 ing is to be. 



The number of purposes for teaching 

 physics that have been suggested and de- 

 fended in the past thirty years has been 

 large. Two, however, have been rather 

 more fundamental than the others, so we 

 will confine our attention to these. The 

 first in the public mind at present is the 

 one given in the report of the Committee 

 on College Entrance Requirements of the 

 National Educational Association, to which 

 the College Entrance Board gave until this 

 year a protecting shelter. It is thus 



