FEBRUARY 8, 1901. ] 
it should be plentifully seasoned with re- 
search. Science in the past has been in- 
debted in a very great measure for its prog- 
ress to the teaching class. An inquiry into 
the statistics of this subject, which I had 
oceasion to make some years ago, and in 
which I attempted to classify the profes- 
sions of all the authors up to the middle of 
the present century, who are sufficiently 
known to have found a place in the pages 
of Poggendorff’s Dictionary, showed that 
nearly 90 per cent. of the scientific work of 
the world had been done by teachers. The 
remainder was divided almost equally be- 
tween the members of the medical profes- 
sion and the clergy. Law was found to be 
almost entirely unrepresented, the most 
notable instance of a lawyer who has left a 
name in science being that of Bacon. 
There has been of course a considerable 
number of amateurs in science, and the list 
contains some famous names, such, in phys- 
ics, for examples, as Joule in England, and 
Holtz, Elster and Geitel in Germany ; but 
taken numerically this class shows a very 
small percentage in the tables. Great as 
the attainments of the teacher in investiga- 
tion have been when compared with those 
of the remainder of the community, the 
statistics show that in this country at least 
not more than ten per cent. even of college 
men engaged in the teaching of physics can 
be counted as belonging to the ranks of the 
producers. I have been unable to extend 
the inquiry to physics teachers in second- 
ary schools, not through any difficulty in 
enumerating those whose names appear in 
scientific authorship, but through ignorance 
as to the total number who’ are engaged in 
teaching the subject in the United States. 
It is clear, however, that the ratio would 
be even smaller than in the case of those 
who are teaching in our colleges and uni- 
versities. 
That there are very great and very real 
difficulties any one who has attempted to 
SCIENCE. 
203 
carry on research and teaching at the same 
time must admit. The principal excuses 
offered for the abandonment of any attempt 
at scientific performance are lack of time, 
lack of apparatus and lack of the necessary quali- 
fications for the work. A comparison of col- 
lege teachers with the;teachers in the sec- 
ondary schools in these respects has led me 
to the opinion that the differences of op- 
portunity are much smaller than is com- 
monly supposed. Science teachers, both in 
the college and in the school, are unques- 
tionably overworked. The tax upon the 
nervous system of the proper teaching of 
science is very great, and it is more often 
the want of surplus energy with which to 
carry On investigation, than lack of actual 
time or of the necessary equipment that de- 
feats us. The actual number of hours de- 
manded of teachers is; small as compared 
with that required by many other callings ; 
so much so, that by the outsider the teacher 
is apt to be regarded as belonging to the 
leisure class; but measured in terms of 
vital energy those hours, as we all know, 
are quite long enough. 
The plea of lack of qualification for re- 
search is one which the college man feels 
less free to make than does the teacher in 
the secondary schools; because he knows 
that whether he has such qualifications or 
not he is at least supposed to possess them ; 
whereas it has not yet been demanded -of 
secondary school teachers that they should 
be capable of actual scientific productive- 
ness. This difference of standard I believe 
is a false one and most unfortunate; for it 
is certainly more difficult to teach success- 
fully the beginnings of a subject than to 
conduct advanced work. The real expla- 
nation of the comparative unproductiveness 
of secondary school teachers lies, I am con- 
vinced, in the absence of the habit of investi- 
gation, a habit which like all others must be 
acquired by practise and maintained by 
continued practise. Research flourishes 
