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SCIENCE 



[X. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 813 



cents an hour." The practise of employ- 

 ing school pupils in this way is, I think, 

 rather a common one in large schools, and 

 evidently it is very good, so far as it goes. 

 The great objection to it is the lack of 

 permanency in the helper's tenure, which 

 must devolve upon the teacher the painful 

 labor of breaking in a new assistant every 

 year or two, and must, in general, prevent 

 the temporary incumbent from acquiring 

 any great amount of skill and responsibil- 

 ity in his work. One school teacher of 

 much experience (note 19) fears that the 

 present-day "vocational schools" will not 

 be able to give the training needed and 

 speaks with enthusiasm of the boys who 

 are taught in "the school for instrument 

 makers at the University of Leyden. " 

 But is it not possible that the people who 

 are, in this country, just beginning to 

 grapple with the vocational-school problem 

 will welcome the suggestion here made, fo 

 give a varied course of training with tools, 

 with some theoretical instruction also, 

 qualifying the pupil to be, not a first-class 

 carpenter, a first class plumber, or a 

 highly skilled electrician, but a good jack- 

 at-all-trades, a character who may at last 

 come into his own and be recognized and 

 respected for what he is, a most useful in- 

 dividual, in the right place. 



Proposition 5. — Only one, Professor 

 Mann, entirely rejects this proposition, 

 though two or three (notes 8, 11, 43) 

 qualify it somewhat, and Professor Hull, 

 of Dartmouth, declares himself in doubt, 

 with the remark (note 35), "there should 

 be coordination and therefore a rather 

 definite course." Professor Mitchell, of 

 Soochow University, China, approves the 

 general proposition. "But would not ac- 

 cept the list in j^our [my] comments as a 

 true consensus." 



The remark of Professor Mitchell 

 prompts me to explain that I did not offer 



the list he mentions, which is given earlier 

 in this paper, as representing a final, or 

 even a strictly ascertained present, con- 

 sensus. I offered it as evidence tending to 

 show college men, many of whom have 

 been very skeptical as to the seriousness 

 and value of the school study of physics, 

 that work deserving their respectful con- 

 sideration is now done in this science in 

 many of the schools of this country. For 

 this purpose it seems to me important and, 

 though I am not personally quite satisfied 

 with the list just as it now stands, I do not 

 think it best to discuss its details in this 

 paper, except as I may have to speak of 

 them in connection with proposition 9. 



Professor Mann, who, as I have already 

 said, alone rejects (5) outright says (note 

 46), "High Schools must serve their com- 

 munities effieientlj^ and colleges must take 

 their product and do their best with it," 

 etc. This somewhat harsh profession of 

 humility on the part of a college man is in 

 accordance with occasional declarations of 

 school men, not usually, I think, teachers 

 of physics, but more often principals of 

 schools. 



But just what is meant by the phrase 

 "serve their communities efficiently"? 

 One might suppose that school teachers 

 when left to themselves, without interfer- 

 ence from the' colleges, know just what 

 their pupils ought to have and that the 

 pupils gladly accept what the teachers or 

 the principals offer. One might suppose, 

 though I do not think Professor Mann in- 

 tended to imply this, that schools left to 

 themselves soon establish a satisfactory 

 definite eoui-se of study, or at most one or 

 two fairly definite and satisfactory courses. 

 Probably this is done in some cases, per- 

 haps in many cases. But I remember be- 

 ing told some years ago by the principal of 

 an "English high school" not far from 

 Boston that his pupils had almost unre- 



