November 14, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



771 



Hitherto the average boy has been 

 taught mathematics and mechanics as if he 

 were going to be a Newton or a Laplace; 

 he learnt nothing and became stupid. I 

 am sorry to say that the teaching of 

 mechanics and mechanical engineering 

 through experiment is comparatively un- 

 known. Cambridge writers and other 

 writers of books on experimental mechan- 

 ics are unfortunately ignorant of engineer- 

 ing. University courses on engineering — 

 with one splendid exception, under Pro- 

 fessor Ewing at Cambridge— assume that 

 undergraduates are taught their mechanics 

 as a logical development of one or two 

 axioms ; whereas in many technical schools 

 under the science and art department 

 apprentices go through a wonderfully good 

 laboratory course in mechanical engineer- 

 ing. We really want to give only a few 

 fundamental ideas about momentum and 

 the transformations of energy and the 

 properties of materials, and to give them 

 from so many points of view that they be- 

 come part of a student's mental machinery, 

 so that he uses them continually. Instead 

 of giving a hundred labor-saving rules 

 which must be forgotten, we ought to give 

 the one or two ideas which a man's com- 

 mon-sense will enable him to apply to any 

 pioblem whatsoever and which cannot be 

 forgotten. A boy of good mathematical 

 attainments may build on this experi- 

 mental knowledge afterwards a superstruc- 

 ture more elaborate than Rankine or Kel- 

 vin or Maxwell ever dreamt of as being 

 possible. Every boy will build some super- 

 structure of his own. 



I must not dwell any longer on the three 

 essential parts of a good general education 

 which lead to the three powers which all 

 boys of fifteen ought to possess: power to 

 use books and to enjoy reading; power to 

 use mathematics and to enjoy its use; 

 power to study nature sympathetically. 

 English board-school boys who go to even- 



ing classes in many technical schools after 

 they become apprentices are really obtain- 

 ing this kind of education. The Scotch 

 Education Board is trying to give it to all 

 boys in primary and secondary schools. 

 It will, I fear, be some time before the 

 sons of well-to-do parents in England have 

 a chance of obtaining it. 



When a boy or man of any dge or any 

 kind of experience enters an engineering 

 college and wishes to learn the scientific 

 principles underlying a trade or profes- 

 sion, how ought we to teach him? Here 

 is the reasonable general principle which 

 Professors Ayrton and Armstrong and I 

 have acted upon, and which has so far led 

 us to much success. Whether he comes 

 from a bad or a good school, whether he 

 is an old or young boy or man, approach 

 his intelligence through the knowledge 

 and experience he already possesses. This 

 principle involves that we shall compel the 

 teacher to take the pupil's point of view* 

 rather than the pupil the teacher's; give 

 the student a choice of many directions in 

 which he may study; let lectures be rather 

 to instruct the student how to teach him- 

 self than to teach him; show the student 

 how to learn through experiment, and how 

 to xise books, and, except for suggestion 

 and help when asked for, leave him greatly 

 to himself. If a teacher understands the 

 principle he will have no difiieulty in carry- 

 ing it out with any class of students. I 

 myself prefer to have students of very dif- 

 ferent qualifications and experience in one 

 class, because of the education that each 

 gives to the others. Usually, however, ex- 



* Usually it is assumed that there is only one, 

 line of study. In mathematics it is assumed 

 that a boy has the knowledge and power and 

 past experience and leisure of an Alexandrian 

 philosopher. In mechanics we assume the boy 

 to be fond of abstract reasoning, that he is a good 

 geometrician who can do the most complex things 

 in geometrical conies, but cannot possibly take 

 in the simplest idea of the calculus. 



