142 



SCIENCE 



[;sr. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 813 



It would have to limit itself to giving a 

 provisional grade, on the written exami- 

 nation alone, leaving to the individual col- 

 lege to which the candidate goes the con- 

 duet of the laboratory test. This is the 

 function of the college entrance board now 

 with respect to candidates taking the 

 board examination in physics with a view 

 to entering Harvard. 



Professor Mann (note 47) remarks that 

 the question raised in (6) "has no signifi- 

 cance in the west," where they have "out- 

 grown" entrance examinations. 



Propositions 7 and 8. — 18 school teach- 

 ers out of 20 replying and 34 college teach- 

 ers out of 40 replying are in favor of ma- 

 king, in the college elementary teaching 

 of physics, "an important distinction 

 between those who have and those who 

 have not passed in physics at admission," 

 though a number of the college teachers 

 (notes 26, 27, 32, 38) add some qualifying 

 remark. 



Proposition 8, which is a natural though 

 not an inevitable corollary of (7), was 

 favored as freely by school teachers, though 

 not quite so freely by college teachers. 



Professor Saunders (note 57) rejects 

 (7) with the brief comment, "Not in New 

 York State." Professor Crew (note 24) 

 and Professor Magie (note 41) make 

 longer statements explaining their oppo- 

 sition. Professor Crew says: "The uni- 

 versity presents the subject as a connected 

 whole, as a single great body of truth. 

 The student here, for the first time, meets 

 a philosophical connection between the 

 dilferent parts of the subject." Professor 

 Magie says that "the student undergoes a 

 considerable mental development in the 

 later years of his school life and his early 

 years at college. A physics course in col- 

 lege 'substantially equivalent,' etc., would 

 be too childish for him," etc. "The plane 

 of the teaching — the philosophic attitude 



of the teacher — ought to be more ad- 

 vanced." 



I am by no means out of sympathy with 

 the general feeling expressed by Professor 

 Crew and Professor Magie concerning the 

 proper difference between the school treat- 

 ment and the college treatment of any 

 subject of study, even with beginners. 

 Some feeling of this sort is involved in my 

 own amendment to (8). It seems to me, 

 however, that the college teacher of phys- 

 ics can philosophize to much better ad- 

 vantage, if his students already know 

 some rudiments of fact and theory. It is 

 po.ssible for schools to give sound instruc- 

 tion in these rudiments in physics, and a 

 large proportion^ of the students wiU nat- 

 urally, if the school teachers of physics 

 are properly trained and supported, come 

 to college with su.ch instruction. Proposi- 

 tion 7 would merely require those who do 

 not enter college with this attainment to 

 get it, and would offer them opportunity 

 to get it, before entering the higher and 

 more philosophical course which Professor 

 Crew and Professor Magie describe. 



Note 13, which begins thus, "Found in 

 my three years of college teaching that no 

 'important distinction' could be made," 

 and follows with some details brought out 

 by a special letter of inquiry, is interest- 

 ing as showing the kind of evidence on 

 which, in some colleges at least, the teach- 

 ers come to the conclusion that school 

 physics is of little account. In the case 

 referred to in this note 13 "there was no 



"^At Harvard we have for the last ten years 

 allowed the candidates for admission to offer in 

 place of physics, formerly required of all, an 

 equivalent amount of work in chemistry, or in 

 certain other natural sciences, the usual prac- 

 ticable choice, however, lying between physics and 

 chemistry. In 1906 about 73 per cent, of those 

 entering as candidates for the A.B. and the S.B. 

 had passed in physios; in 1907, about 73 p6r cent.; 

 in 190S, about 72 per cent.; in 1909, about 75 per 

 cent. 



