256 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 737 



possible, as the smaller one had been to 

 school only one year, and that in a little log 

 cabin up in the hills. But when I called her 

 attention to the fact that these boys had lived 

 on a farm where they had been taught to as- 

 sume responsibility and to do things, she 

 agreed with my explanation. 



I believe that it is the pedagogical value of 

 farm work and the chance of placing respon- 

 sibility on the child that has more than any- 

 thing else to do with the development of effici- 

 ency and character in farm children, and this 

 accounts for the fact that 29 per cent, of our 

 population on the farms furnishes YO per cent, 

 of the efficient men in this country. 



We have much yet to do before we under- 

 stand the whole of this question. I believe, 

 however, it is possible to outline a course 

 which shall deal directly with the industries 

 of our people and which will not only better 

 fit pupils for their life's work, but will even 

 fit them for college better than the best of our 

 present high schools. We all recognize that 

 because of our ignorance of the real principles 

 involved in training the young mind, a lot of 

 experimenting must be done before we have 

 arrived at a final solution of this important 

 question. The criticism I have to make of 

 our school system is that we have neglected 

 these essential experiments. It is high time 

 that earnest effort be made in this direction. 



W. J. Spillman 

 U. S. Depaetment of Agbicultdee 



THE SIMPLE VS. THE COMPLEX IN SCIENTIFIC 

 THEORIES 



There seems to be a growing feeling that 

 our present hypotheses concerning the struc- 

 ture of matter, and its relation to electricity, 

 are becoming unsatisfactory. The reason for 

 this is the increasing complexity of the phe- 

 nomena, as we see them, and of the corres- 

 ponding explanations which this involves. 

 This feeling does not seem to be well founded. 

 A former cave dweller, who has been for a 

 few thousand years an inhabitant of some of 

 the regions which Dante has described, would 

 find our modem life an array of very com- 

 plex phenomena. 



He would observe that empty apartment 

 houses attract homeless families. He would 

 learn that this could not be accounted for by 

 Newton's law of gravitation, although gravi- 

 tational attraction between houses and people 

 certainly does exist. He might feel inclined 

 to give up Newton's law, because it does not 

 explain all attractions. He finally learns 

 that ether waves are involved in this phe- 

 nomenon. The people must see the house 

 before it can have any attraction for them. 

 He would learn that the architecture of the 

 house really appeals to the minds of these 

 people. Being something of a philosopher, 

 he constructs a mental field of force, which 

 lays hold of the building and its surround- 

 ings, and which proceeds from the conscious 

 beings. He is greatly interested in seeing 

 that people appear very much alike, while 

 houses differ very greatly in construction, in 

 material and in mass. 



As he has not yet learned anything about 

 electrical and kindred phenomena, our visitor 

 may be excused if he refers to the people as 

 negative electrons or ions, and to empty 

 houses as positive ions. When a house con- 

 tains families enough, so that it ceases to have 

 any attractions for more, he calls the combi- 

 nation an atom. He observes that more 

 people can be forced into a house already 

 normally filled, but the motive forces must 

 come from some external source. 



He finally learns that a family which has 

 been more or less forcibly ionized, and is 

 about to enter a new home, must deliver to its 

 former occupant and owner, the value-equiva- 

 lent of a certain number of foot-pounds of 

 mechanical work previously done. The value- 

 equivalent of this mechanical work may exist 

 in the form of a certain number of grams of 

 some valuable substance which is actually 

 delivered. The value to be transferred may 

 also exist potentially in the form of credit at 

 a bank. The transfer of this value may then 

 be effected by entries in the books of the 

 bank, which transfer credits from one cus- 

 tomer to another. 



By the time our visitor has learned all these 

 well-known things, it would appear that he 



