732 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 802 



been practically impossible to meet them in 

 any satisfactory manner in schools in 

 which, as is the case, for instance, in the 

 free high schools of Wisconsin, the subject 

 is almost universally a required one. 

 Even the new requirements are still so 

 largely quantitative in their spirit that 

 there is great room for doubt as to the ad- 

 visability of attempting to prepare for col- 

 lege unless the doubtful practise, so com- 

 monly being adopted, of making the 

 college preparatory an elective course is to 

 prevail. This would mean that if pupils 

 are to be given to any adequate extent the 

 wider view of life and its relations, with a 

 permanent interest in the natural phe- 

 nomena about them, separate classes must 

 be formed whose work will not count as a 

 preparation for study in a higher school. 



The results up to this time of the at- 

 tempts to give to all students a general 

 course which would meet the two purposes 

 have been far from satisfactory from the 

 standpoint of either life or the college. 

 Neither interest nor ability has, as a rule, 

 been developed. Even in schools having 

 special preparatory classes the subject is 

 elected by comparatively few and the num- 

 ber taking it because they really like it, is 

 much smaller still. On the other hand, 

 the attempt to make the general class meet 

 the requirements has resulted in very im- 

 perfect ideas coupled too often with an 

 actual dislike of anything related to the 

 distorted meaning attached to the word 

 physics. 



I will illustrate by describing a typical 

 case. A young lady with whom I am well 

 acquainted was studying physics, not in 

 the backwoods, but in a large school in the 

 shadow of what is by common consent con- 

 sidered a great university. The class was 

 in charge of a well-educated young man 

 who has since been promoted to a still bet- 

 ter position. In conversation with the 



young lady I asked her to tell me in plain 

 English the meaning of specific gravity. 

 To make the question more concrete I used 

 a piece of wood as an illustration, and 

 asked what is meant when we say its spe- 

 cific gravity is .6. She began by giving me 

 correctly the formal definition: "Specific 

 gravity is the ratio, etc." This was not 

 plain, every-day, common English. Then 

 she told me how to find specific gravity. 

 This would have no meaning to a person 

 Avho had never studied physics. She 

 finally gave up in despair, and I suggested 

 that the expression meant simply, in the 

 case under consideration, that the piece of 

 wood weighed .6 as much as the same bulk 

 of water. In almost astonishment she de- 

 clared that she had never thought of it in 

 that way before. 



Judging from the answers to this and 

 many similar questions received from hun- 

 dreds of pupils I feel that I am safe in 

 saying that this was a case typical of the 

 large majority. The student was, I think, 

 certainly up to the average in ability to 

 comprehend physics, and she had a nat- 

 ural liking for the subject. At any rate, 

 she can now talk intelligently of the car- 

 buretor, throttle and needle valves, fly 

 wheel and mixture of air and gas of the 

 motor of her launch, and, moreover, the 

 little engine responds more readily to her 

 touch than it does to that of others who 

 might be supposed to be better qualified 

 than she in physics. She even fully ap- 

 preciates the advantage of the system of 

 pulleys used to lift the door of the boat 

 house. She is now a senior in the univer- 

 sity, but her dislike for the study is such 

 that she has refused to elect it in her 

 course, even though she might have taken 

 it under one of the most skilful and inter- 

 esting professors in the whole country. I 

 do not mean to imply that the Avork is all 



