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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 949 



schools, the over-emphasis of physical the- 

 ory carries with it an under-emphasis of 

 the daily experiences, and this renders 

 courses of this type little adapted to bring- 

 ing physics close to daily life. Those who 

 adopt this philosophy may not expect to 

 contribute much to the solution of the prob- 

 lem before us. Their work but adds weight 

 to the demands of that vast majority of 

 our people who must earn their livelihood 

 by controlling the forces of their physical 

 surroundings and solving life's practical 

 problems in the most scientific way. 



The other philosophy which is now con- 

 tending with the abstract for a controlling 

 voice in the organization of physics courses 

 for beginners is quite different from that 

 just discussed. This third system places 

 neither the laws and principles of physics, 

 nor yet the theories and hypotheses of the 

 science at the center of its system. Instead 

 of these human interpretations of phenom- 

 ena, it centers its ideas about the develop- 

 ment to the utmost of the powers and latent 

 abilities of that hope of the future of our 

 nation, the human child himself. It holds 

 that physics does not exist in the schools 

 for the purpose of familiarizing young 

 people with either the laws or the theories 

 of physics ; but rather for the sake of help- 

 ing the pupils to increase their powers of 

 controlling their physical environment in- 

 telligently and solving their life's problems 

 rationally. If this help is wisely given, 

 they will, of course, learn the most funda- 

 mental facts and generalizations of phys- 

 ics; and they will learn them not as the- 

 oretical mechanisms which may help them 

 to imagine how phenomena might be "ex- 

 plained," but as practical knowledge which 

 will help them to control the forces of 

 nature in daily life. Because of the nature 

 of its central idea, this type may be called 

 the practical or concrete philosophy. 



This concrete philosophy demands a very 



different method of treatment from that 

 developed by the other two. The most 

 important differences consist in intro- 

 ducing each topic by means of daily ex- 

 periences of the pupils of each class, in 

 discussing these topics at the outset by the 

 methods of reasoning with which the pupils 

 are already familiar, in working in both 

 class room and laboratory with materials 

 and apparatus which are in common use 

 outside of physics classes, and in leading 

 to conclusions which are expressed in con- 

 crete terms, like pounds and feet, rather 

 than in abstract terms, like atoms and 

 ether. 



This method thus takes the child as he is, 

 and seeks to enlarge his fund of informa- 

 tion concerning what the things about him 

 will actually do, and to increase his powers 

 of controlling his physical surroundings. 

 Signs and symbols are not introduced until 

 a need for them has arisen and the ideas 

 for which they stand have become fairly 

 concrete by wide association with previous 

 concrete ideas. Theories are not ex- 

 pounded until the pupils have acquired a 

 broad and definite knowledge of the facts 

 and laws which the theories are invented 

 to explain. 



The concrete philosophy thus demands 

 an arrangement which begins where that 

 required by the others ends, namely, with 

 the daily life; and ends where the others 

 would begin, with the laws and theories of 

 physics. It lays great weight on having 

 the pupils at the beginning of their course 

 work much with familiar things in ways 

 familiar to them, and insists on their sol- 

 ving many problems of their own making 

 by experiments with apparatus and ma- 

 chines of the sort used in the world's work. 

 It seeks to lead the pupils gradually from 

 the crude intellectual manners with which 

 they come to the physics classes to the 

 more refined and rigorous methods of think- 



