July 29, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



141 



stricted freedom of election of studies, and 

 that it took him a long time {all summer, 

 I believe was his phrase) to arrange his 

 school program for a coming year. I have 

 lately read the following statement from 

 one who has very recently been looking 

 over a great mass of material relating to 

 schools. "The larger high schools run an 

 entirely distinct course of four years for 

 these pupils who intend to go to college, 

 and other courses — sometimes as many as 

 eight others — for those who do not plan to 

 enter college." 



Must we, then, admit that, while differ- 

 ent interests in one community require as 

 many as eight different courses of study 

 in the high school, any one of these eight 

 courses of study ought to be regarded as 

 fitting a boy for college ? 



I still hope that we shall be able to 

 frame a course of school physics which 

 will be sound in theory and apt for daily 

 use, good preparation for college study 

 and good equipment for the active-minded 

 boy whose academic career ends with his 

 high-school training. 



Proposition 6. — A large majority of the 

 replies, whether from schools or from col- 

 leges, favor a laboratory test as a part of 

 the entrance examination, if there is to be 

 any examination, though a few of the 

 school teachers and a considerable minor- 

 ity, about one third, of the college teachers 

 reject this suggestion. 



Professor Gale, of the University of 

 Chicago, probably speaks the opinion of 

 many when he says (note 31) "I doubt 

 the practicability." The question of prac- 

 ticability here is very closely connected 

 with propositions 7 and 8. At Harvard, 

 where our practise for many years has 

 been in accordance with (7) and (8), 

 there is no question as to the practicability 

 of the laboratory examination. "We have 

 had it there for more than twenty years. 



and, on the whole, it has woi-ked well, as 

 most teachers who are in the habit of pre- 

 paring boys for it would, I think, testify. 

 New England school teachers familiar with 

 this practise at Harvard have been for 

 some time urging the middle states teach- 

 ers to ask for a like practise in connection 

 with the college entrance board examina- 

 tions; but the middle states teachers are 

 doubtful. 



The laboratory test is easily managed 

 at Harvard because we have there in reg- 

 ular use in our college course for begin- 

 ners laboratory apparatus very similar to 

 that used in high school laboratory 

 courses. If the physics teachers in the 

 schools about Cambridge think that things 

 are taking a wrong turn in this test they 

 are very likely to tell us so. The latest 

 complaint, made to me last fall by a well- 

 known school teacher, was that the labora- 

 tory examination of June, 1909, was too 

 easy, that his pupils were laughing over it. 

 Investigation showed that our examiners, 

 who were unusually few last June, had 

 fallen into the way of using certain experi- 

 ments, the most convenient ones, too fre- 

 quently, and using many others not at 

 all. This danger must be looked out for 

 in future. A laboratory examination will 

 no more run itself successfully than any 

 other examination will; but neither the 

 care nor the expense needed for its proper 

 maintenance is formidably great. At 

 Harvard, where the examiners are paid 

 $1.50 an hour each, the average expense 

 to the university of examining a boy in 

 the laboratory is probably less than fifty 

 cents. 



It would, of course, be impracticable for 

 the college entrance board to apply the 

 laboratory test; for its examinations are 

 conducted at many different places, not 

 usually in laboratories, by proctors or 

 monitors who are not usually physicists. 



