May 27, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



833 



gineering students, and the other to classical, 

 chemical and literary students. Personally I 

 believe it is highly desirable to make this dis- 

 tinction. 



The problem of the inequality of student 

 interest and capacity is one that confronts col- 

 lege teachers of physics in an unusual degree. 

 It does not always (and, perhaps, not usually) 

 follow that the poorest students in physics are 

 the poorest in other subjects ; it is simply that 

 the charms of physics reveal themselves only 

 to those who are willing to work hard and long 

 over its perplexities. A course in history or 

 civics may appeal to a student who expects to 

 go into business when he leaves college, but op- 

 tical interference and magnetic hysteresis are 

 likely to appeal only to the specialist. 



As a rule these two classes are clearly de- 

 fined. Students who are expecting to use 

 physics as a foundation for technical branches 

 will master its difficulties as a matter of 

 course; while the other class think themselves 

 aggrieved that they should be burdened with 

 mathematical theories and problems. 



There results a very unfortunate state of af- 

 fairs when these classes of students are recit- 

 ing in the same division. The question, there- 

 fore, arises, Is there not some remedy for the 

 difficulty? And the only possible solution be- 

 comes an easy solution if we are ready to an- 

 swer affirmatively the question propounded in 

 the heading of this article. 



Leaving out of consideration the question 

 of ease or difficulty in teaching, does it not 

 seem fitting that physics should be presented 

 to a student who is looking towards civil or 

 electrical engineering, somewhat differently 

 than to one who is preparing for law, theology 

 or business? To be more specific, it seems to 

 the writer that the mathematical treatment of 

 physical subjects is undesirable in cases where 

 the student is not looking forward to further 

 work along this line. It is unfortunate that a 

 subject so delightful under certain conditions 

 should be made the bugbear of the course by 

 insistence upon rigid mathematical applica- 

 tions. For example, Hastings and Beach's text- 

 book, to which I can not pay a higher compli- 

 ment than to say that I use it each year with 

 about eighty engineering students, is, in my 



opinion, absolutely unadapted to students in 

 classical, literary or chemical courses. 



What is the purpose of the training in phys- 

 ics which these latter students receive? In 

 the first place it develops their reasoning fac- 

 ulties in a very high degree ; secondly, it makes 

 (or ought to make) them familiar with the 

 historical development of the various phys- 

 ical theories which are commonly accepted at 

 the present time; thirdly, it gives them an in- 

 sight into the laws and processes of nature. 

 If these points are well taken, it may be ad- 

 mitted that for the development of logical 

 methods and processes nothing can surpass the 

 applications of mathematics to physics; but 

 such a large amount of similar training must 

 of necessity come from the various mathemat- 

 ical courses usually pursued that the first need 

 not be insisted upon. It is rather the second 

 and third statements of the advantages of 

 physics for general students that appeal to us. 

 And these are very distinct from the purposes 

 of a course for technical students. It would 

 without doubt be a poor technical course 

 which entirely neglected the historical devel- 

 opment or other general features of the sub- 

 ject, but, on the whole, the purposes of general 

 and technical courses are diverse. One who 

 is looking forward to the law as a profession 

 ought to know the conditions under which the 

 law of gravitation was discovered, and some- 

 thing of the development of the doctrine of 

 the conservation of energy. But there is no 

 occasion for his mastering, or better, life is 

 too short for him to stop to master, the mathe- 

 matical development of simple harmonic mo- 

 tion or the kinetic theory of gases. 



The fact that so' many institutions pre- 

 scribe the same courses in physics for students 

 in all departments would indicate that there 

 must be good reasons for so doing. This note 

 is written by one who pursues the opposite 

 policy with the hope that some of these rea- 

 sons may be published in a future number of 

 Science. James S. Stevens. 



UNn'EESITY OF MAINE. 



COMET a 1904- 



This comet, discovered by Professor W. R. 

 Brooks on the night of April 16, has an orbit 



