June 24, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



969 



attainments of the pupils sent to him, in 

 order that he may take all proper advan- 

 tage of the instruction already given, and 

 it is probably true that a larger number of 

 institutions should offer such moderately 

 advanced courses than is at present the 

 case. 



I propose next to refer briefly to one or 

 two specific points at which it appears to 

 me that the instruction in the secondary 

 schools might be improved. I do this with 

 much hesitation, for I realize that those 

 very details or methods which perhaps fail 

 to appeal to me may well be very dear to 

 another, and I realize that I should be loath 

 indeed to have the actual efficiency of my 

 own instruction judged by certain alleged 

 quotations on the part of some of my stu- 

 dents, or even by the subsequent acts of 

 many of them. A conspicuous instance of 

 the failure of some of our hopes was af- 

 forded by a statement made by one of our 

 students in a recent written test that 

 "nitroglycerine is used as a lubricant." 



A question which many find difficult to 

 answer is this: How far, taking into ac- 

 count existing and not idealized conditions, 

 is it just to regard note-books as an index 

 of the efficiency of the instruction as given 

 in a particular school, or college! I shall 

 not be rash enough to undertake to answer 

 this beyond expressing a conviction that 

 while a note-book which is well kept and 

 carefully corrected probably indicates care- 

 ful, efficient teaching, a relatively poor 

 note-book may represent more accurately 

 an overburdened condition of the teacher, 

 which prevents adequate inspection and 

 correction, than actual inefficiency in in- 

 struction. For it is often true that much 

 of apparent error in the records may have 

 been actually corrected in conference or 

 class-room. This does not, however, apply 

 to some of the atrociously bad specimens 

 which are occasionally met with, nor, on 



the other hand, does it ignore those note- 

 books which are obviously not records of 

 work done, but stiidiedly prepared exhibits, 

 executed through connivance of teacher 

 and pupil at the expense of a fundamental 

 principle of all scientific work, rigid 

 honesty. 



Is it not true that too many teachers are 

 contented to have their students perform 

 more or less perfunctorily the magic ' ' forty 

 experiments" which are said by some one 

 else to represent a suitable course, rather 

 than to vitalize their instruction by de- 

 vising ten, twenty-five, fifty-five or any 

 other number of experiments of their own 

 to illustrate the facts or principles which 

 they themselves desire to fix in the pupils' 

 minds, and to see that these are actually 

 discerned. The busy, often overburdened 

 teacher, will not always find time or energy 

 to devise an entire course of instruction, 

 but the introduction of even a limited 

 amount of well-considered experiments or 

 class-room instruction which represents the 

 personal equation of the individual teacher 

 does much to maintain enthusiasm for the 

 teaching which is often reflected in the 

 work of the pupils as well. 



The deadening tendency of a mere fol- 

 lowing of a course of experiments laid 

 dovm by others shows itself also in a dis- 

 position to regard each experiment as a 

 thing apart, the nominal completion of 

 which is a cause mainly for relief, is also 

 reflected in many instances in the notes 

 submitted, which are long and minutely 

 descriptive of really insignificant details, 

 but miss the real point of the experiment. 

 This, in turn, comes from the fact that the 

 pupil is not sufficiently informed why he is 

 asked to perform the experiment at all, 

 and in the strangeness of the work he nat- 

 urally confuses the important and the un- 

 important. For example, he is often ap- 

 parently left to think that a description of 



