796 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 779 



written in the deed : " To the end that the 

 pupil may gain a comprehensive and con- 

 nected view of the most important facts 

 and laws of elementary physics." This 

 purpose leads to the very specific question : 

 Do the pupils get such a view under the 

 current system of instruction? This ques- 

 tion can be answered— nay, is answered, 

 with perfect definiteness on all the exami- 

 nation papers written by the pupils. Need 

 I tell a body of physics teachers what the 

 answer is? How many papers each year 

 convince you that the writers have either 

 a comprehensive or a connected view of the 

 most important facts and laws? For my- 

 self, I do not hesitate to answer ; very few ; 

 and, as a college teacher who must build 

 on the comprehensive and connected view 

 implanted by others, I must confess that I 

 am seldom able to discover it. In some few 

 students it is there, but in the great ma- 

 jority it is not. 



Under these conditions it seems perfectly 

 fair to question whether the present habits 

 of teaching are sound and to try to find out 

 what is the matter. Two sources of trouble 

 have already been pointed out. In our ef- 

 forts to make the view comprehensive, we 

 have overcrowded the course to the point 

 where we have but eleven minutes forty- 

 three and six tenths seconds to a topic. In 

 our efforts to make it connected, logically 

 connected, we have become rationalists and 

 resorted to the "absolute," thereby ma- 

 king much of it unintelligible. One scien- 

 tific experiment would consist in reducing 

 the subject matter, forsaking the absolutes, 

 and then testing all along for the clearness 

 of view gained. Another would consist in 

 presenting the same topic to several dif- 

 ferent classes by different methods to see 

 if some previously unintelligible topics 

 might be made intelligible if differently 

 treated. Numerous other experiments will 

 at once suggest themselves, all aimed at 



finding the best way of "giving a compre- 

 hensive and connected view" of such facts 

 and principles as were introduced. In this 

 matter there is no royal road to success. 

 Each teacher must find out for himself 

 how best to succeed with his particular 

 class. 



The second important purpose of teach- 

 ing science does not seem to have received 

 much attention of late. It has not been a 

 protected commodity like the other. Its 

 statement is best given in a report of a 

 committee on teaching of elementary phys- 

 ics that was presented to the British As- 

 sociation for the Advancement of Science 

 in 1874. 



They have assumed as a point not requiring 

 further discussion that the object to be attained 

 by introducing the teaching of pliysics into gen- 

 eral school work is the mental training and dis- 

 cipline which the pupils acquire through studying 

 the methods whereby the conclusions of phj'sical 

 science have been established. They are, however, 

 of opinion that the first and one of the most seri- 

 ous obstacles in the way of the successful teaching 

 of this subject is the absence from the pupils" 

 minds of a firm and clear grasp of the concrete 

 facts and phenomena forming the basis of the 

 reasoning processes they are called upon to study. 

 They therefore think it of the utmost importance 

 that the first teaching of all branches of physics 

 should be, as far as possible, of an experimental 

 kind. Whenever circumstances admit of it the 

 experiments should be made by the pupils them- 

 selves and not merely by the teacher, and though 

 it may not be needful for every pupil to go 

 through every experiment, the committee think it 

 essential that every pupil should at least make 

 some experiments himself. 



For the same reasons, they consider that the 

 study of text-books should be entirely subordinate 

 to attendance at experimental demonstrations or 

 lectures, in order that the pupils' first impressions 

 may be got directly from the things themselves 

 and not from what is said about them. They do 

 not suppose that it is possible in elementary 

 teaching entirely to do without the use of text- 

 books, but they think they ought to be used for 

 reviewing the matter of previous experimental 

 lessons rather than in preparing for such lessons 

 that are to follow. 



