May 13, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



731 



may prevent their ever becoming scientific. 

 Intolerance of those who have the gift of 

 imagination may lead one to try to sup- 

 press a Davy or a Maxwell. 



Public dissatisfaction with the teaching 

 of to-day is expressed by many. Let me 

 quote a few. 



L. B. Avery, of California: 



Physics is the most fundamental in its con- 

 ceptions and the most practical in its applications 

 of all the sciences. The proposition to leave any 

 portion of those who take a complete high school 

 course with no knowledge of it is in itself a com- 

 plete acknowledgment of the educational inade- 

 quacy of the present methods. 



L. H. Bailey, of Cornell : 



Distinguish between the teaching function and 

 the research function. We are teachers. It is 

 our business to open the minds of the young to 

 the facts of science. . . . Nature study is a new 

 mode of teaching, not a new subject. It is just 

 as applicable to the college as to the common 

 school. . . . We should be interested more in the 

 student than in the science. 



T. M. Balliet, of New York University, 

 in School Review, Vol. 16, p. 217, has an 

 exceedingly good article, but too long to 

 quote, on "The [evil] Influence of Present 

 Methods of Graduate Instruction on the 

 Teaching in Secondary Schools." 



W. S. Franklin, of Lehigh : 



My experience is, most emphatically, that a 

 student may measure a thing and know nothing 

 at all about it and I believe that the . present 

 high school courses in elementary physics in 

 which quantitative laboratory work is so strongly 

 emphasized, are altogether bad. ... I Delieve that 

 physical sciences should be taught in the sec- 

 ondary schools with reference primarily to their 

 practical applications. ... I can not endure a 

 so-called knowledge of elementary science which 

 does not relate to some actual physical condition 

 or thing. . . . Either you must create an actual 

 world of the unusual phenomena of nature by 

 purchasing an elaborate and expensive equipment 

 of scientific apparatus, or you must make use of 

 the boy's everyday world of actual conditions 

 and tilings. 



David Starr Jordan, of Leland Stanford 

 University : 



For colleges to specify certain classes of sub- 

 jects regardless of the real interest of the sec- 

 ondary schools and their pupils is a species of 

 impertinence which only tradition justifies. . . . 

 In general, the high-school graduate who has a 

 training worth while in the conduct of life is also 

 well-fitted to enter college for further training. 

 The average American boy quits the high school 

 in disgust because he can not interpret its work 

 in terms of life. 



S. V. Kellerman: 



Only by teaching honestly what the world 

 needs, and can use, may the schools accomplish 

 their lofty aims. 



No one has stated the dissatisfaction 

 with present practises more justly than 

 Principal W. D. Lewis in the Outlook, De- 

 cember 11, 1909, in an article entitled 

 "College Domination of High Schools," 

 from which I make an extract or two. 



The high school is failing in its mission because 

 its methods and scope of instruction are deter- 

 mined by college entrance examinations made by 

 specialists whose point of view is not the welfare 

 of the student, but the (supposed) requirements 

 for advanced study of certain subjects. . . . Our 

 present college-dictated high-school course is ill 

 adapted to the real needs of the people in that it 

 places the emphasis on the wrong subjects, and 

 practically eliminates those that would be of the 

 greatest practical value in the lives of the vast 

 majority of pupils whose only opportunity for 

 higher education is in the public high school. 

 No less destructive of the welfare of the masses 

 is the limitation in method of treatment of the 

 subjects taught. . . . College teachers have written 

 the courses, trained the teachers, set the exam- 

 inations and execrated the results. 



John F. Woodhull 

 Teachees College, 

 Columbia University 



FOUR INSTRUMENTS OF CONFUSION IN 

 TEACHING PHYSICS "^ 



The college entrance requirements in 

 physics have been such, at least up to the 

 time of the recent modifications, that it has 



' Read before Section L, Boston, 1909. 



