Makch 25, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



487 



the learner than the limitations of human 

 knowledge concerning even household mat- 

 ters. As a boy I was taught to respect 

 Newton as the man who had explained 

 gravitation; to-day the lad is taught that 

 Newton distinctly refused even to make a 

 guess at its explanation. ■ With equal piety, 

 I was taught that there are six kinds of 

 electricity, all mysterious and imperfectly 

 understood; but it was never hinted in 

 those days that we are no less ignorant 

 of what carbon or what copper is than we 

 are as to the nature of electricity. 



Illustrating this point, I have long main- 

 tained that one of the most scholarly men 

 I ever met was a motorman on a trolley 

 line running out of Denver some thirteen 

 years ago. I was at the time visiting the 

 then new University of Denver. And 

 seeing what appeared to me an extra wire 

 suspended above the trolley, I stepped to 

 the forward end of the ear and inquired as 

 to its purpose. I shall never forget the 

 reply of the man as he turned his frank 

 countenance toward me and said: 'My 

 dear sir, all I know about this is just 

 enough to turn on the juice and let her 

 buzz ! ' 



Still again the instructor in modern phys- 

 ics is a man who believes in the careful 

 scrutiny of all the data which enter into an 

 argument, and in the avoidance of reason- 

 ing from insufficient data — the 'bastard 

 a priori method' as described by Spencer. 

 The modern laboratory instructor is a man 

 whose ambition for his student is that 

 in the presence of physical phenomena he 

 shall maintain a certain mental attitude of 

 independence, a habit of observation, in- 

 quiry, experiment and judgment, that he 

 shall acquire what is known in military 

 circles as skill in scouting. 



The difficulty of these tasks was not 

 first pointed out either by Longfellow or 

 by Goethe; for Hippocrates* had already 



*^' Aphorisms,' T. I. 



remarked that: 'Art is long, time is fleet- 

 ing, opportunity brief, experiment diffi- 

 cult, judgment uncertain.' 



In conclusion we find that improvements 

 in the teaching of physics have come from 

 three directions, improvements in material, 

 improvements in method and improve- 

 ments in men. But unfortunately the 

 greatest changes appear to have occurred 

 in the least important direction, namely, 

 that of material; while the least change 

 is visible in the most important direction, 

 namely, in the teaching staff. 



So much for the past, but what of the 

 future? The physical and biological sci- 

 ences have changed the entire face of 

 civilization; they have ameliorated human 

 suffering, they have prevented disease, 

 they have set us free from a thousand and 

 one painful superstitions. Does any one 

 imagine their career at an end? The fact 

 appears to be that in the immediate future 

 these sciences are to become the determin- 

 ing factor in deciding the superiority of 

 nations. Numbers are a potent factor, 

 but they are not everything. What a host 

 of phenomena in the South African War 

 are explained by the incident of the Boer 

 father who handed his boy a single car- 

 tridge and instructed him to go out and 

 bring in an antelope ! 



Two duties would, therefore, appear to 

 thrust themselves upon every instructor, 

 every investigator and every patron of sci- 

 ence. The first is to see that science is 

 taught in a still more effective manner. 

 The test of effectiveness we must find in the 

 students' ability to do something; he must 

 either help us to use the energies of nature 

 to make life easier or he must join the 

 pioneer corps and show us new properties 

 of matter and energy whose usefulness no 

 one to-day Avill question. 



And secondly we who have faith in the 

 scientific method must exhibit the courage 

 of our convictions in seeing that science 



