478 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1403 



ences and explanations wMeli enliven the 

 recitation and lecture and which serve as 

 nothing else can serve to stimulate the stu- 

 dent's imagination: but no student can work 

 on such things, and the text-book must be 

 something on which he can work. 



The idea is somehow widely prevalent 

 among students, and also among teachers, 

 that the understanding rather than the 

 memory should function in the study of 

 physics; but no one can understand any- 

 thing until many things are fixed in the 

 mind. The student should be required to 

 burn into his memory all definitions, all 

 statements of principles and laws, all ele- 

 mentary proportions with their proofs and 

 all important equations with their deriva- 

 tions. When he does this he will get a hun- 

 dred times as much as he can otherwise get 

 from his lectures and recitations, the sum 

 total of his effort will be reduced, and his 

 worry will cease to exist. 



The most distressing idolatry the world 

 has ever seen is the modern, popular, science- 

 worship which pays no tithes and takes no 

 pains. It is our Great Religion. Its cate- 

 chism is science teaching which abhors exac- 

 tions; its litany is the semi-serious wail of 

 regret of our easier college graduates that a 

 silver-spoon smartness was not transmuted 

 by a pleasant college course into what they 

 conceive the talents of its priesthood to be; 

 and its beatitudes are the above-mentioned 

 appreciation-stuff which imbues every easy- 

 going dilettante with a false sense of under- 

 standing the universe and encourages every 

 would-be parasite to think exaltingly that 

 science is the building of steamships to carry 

 him where he has no need to go, of railways 

 to bring him things he could do better with- 

 out and of airplanes to carry quickly his 

 letters which could not lose in meaning if 

 their time of transit were to take a thousand 

 years ! 



Most people think of science in terms of its 

 results, chiefly, indeed, in terms of results 

 which facilitate joy riding of all kinds, in- 

 cluding easy orgies of near-thinking; but 

 science is Finding Out and Learning How, 



its great gift to those of us who live inside 

 of its frontiers is an understanding of the 

 things which surround us and of the things 

 we have to do, and its price is pains. 



SOME STATEMENTS CONCERNING THE TEACHING OF 

 PHYSICS 



Arranged to Promote Discussion at the Orono 



Meeting of the New England Section 



of the 8. P. E. E. 



The teacher must not mistake the fixity of 

 an idea as its raison d'etre. As relating to 

 ideas fixity and reason are not the same thing, 

 especially when it comes to transmitting ideas 

 to students. 



The teacher who mistakes fixity for reason 

 does not, as a rule, exercise himself greatly in 

 his teaching; and the teacher who does put 

 energy into his teaching needs, above all things, 

 to guard against what may be called the " illu- 

 sion of activity " which is the feeling that one 

 is doing a thing well when one is doing it with 

 all one's might! When a teacher does a lesson 

 with all his might, the students may be doing 

 nothing at all. 



It is not the teacher's business to promote the 

 use of the metric system, partly because any 

 effort he may make in this direction is pretty 

 nearly sure to be wasted, and partly because he 

 has too much else to do. 



Let the teacher use familiar units wherever 

 possible. In mechanics let him use English 

 units and refer briefiy to c.g.s. units. In elec- 

 tricity and magnetism let him use the units 

 of the volt-ampere-ohm system wherever these 

 units can be used, and let him use the electro- 

 magnetic c.g.s. units where it is necessary to 

 use them. 



liothing in the teaching of physics is of 

 greater importance than to frame numerical 

 problems so that the data as given might be 

 determined by actual laboratory test. The con- 

 sistent following of this rule will do much to 

 develop physical sense in the student; and 

 neglect of this rule is sure to leave the student 

 " up in the air." 



Ask a student about the effect of an unbal- 

 anced force on a body and he is apt to make the 



