:September 12, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



565 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 The Teaching of Physics. By C. Eiborg 

 Manx. New York, Macmillan, 1912. Pp. 

 XXV +304. $1.25. 



Professor Mann's well-known views on the 

 methods of teaching high-school physics find, 

 in his book on this subject, well-developed and 

 orderly expression, much more thoroughly 

 worked out and carefully arranged than was 

 possible in his numerous earlier papers and 

 addresses. It is only natural that a decided 

 improvement should be the result of such 

 change in form of presentation, and yet it 

 would he difficult to find another development, 

 from fragmentary form into treatise, in which 

 the material has gained so much in value as 

 has the subject matter in review. The volume 

 on " The Teaching of Physics " carries a con- 

 structive tone almost from the beginning. 



The main lines followed are : The develop- 

 ment of the high school itself, from an insti- 

 tution used mainly as a training school for 

 college and university, to one at present so 

 generally appropriated by the people who sup- 

 port it that only a small fraction of all its 

 graduates later enter the university; the influ- 

 ence exercised by college and university upon 

 the curriculum of the high school and upon 

 the form of the separate courses therein; the 

 effect of such influence upon the content and 

 methods of the physics course. This effect 

 seems to the author to be traceable in the 

 change from the natural philosophy of the 

 middle of the past century, with a decided 

 leaning toward discussions of the concrete 

 physical problems of the arts and of every-day 

 life, to the more abstract and disciplinary 

 methods of the later school science. The doc- 

 trine of formal discipline receives a share of 

 the blame for the change so traced — a doctrine 

 which has thrown its baneful influence even 

 over the study of the classics of our literature. 

 After citing authorities in the field of educa- 

 tional psychology to prove that the hope of 

 transfer of discipline, gained in one field to 

 another field of mental endeavor, is a mere 

 will-o'-the-wisp. Professor Mann urges the 

 teachers of high-school physics to bring the 

 science home to their pupils, to a state of use- 

 fulness such that application may be made 



naturally and immediately to the needs of 

 every-day life — a thing necessary indeed if a 

 vast majority of the pupils are to receive any 

 appreciable benefit from the subject. He con- 

 tends that such a change will be accomplished 

 only when the content of the course concerns 

 itself less with highly abstract ideas, less with 

 highly developed systems of units, and more 

 with broad general principles applicable to the 

 real and concrete problems which the pupil, 

 and later the man and the woman, meet in 

 their work and recreation. A discussion of 

 present-day text-books follows — ^mainly adverse 

 criticism — and some proposed remedies are 

 suggested in the form of new methods of ap- 

 proach to the more fundamental principles. 

 To these criticisms and suggestions is added 

 the further suggestion that only by a process 

 of experimental development will there be 

 evolved a satisfactory high-school course in 

 physics, with equally satisfactory text-books. 

 The need is for cooperative effort and study of 

 the problem on the part of large numbers of 

 physics teachers. 



The details by means of which Professor 

 Mann has followed these lines of development 

 have been handled by him generally in excel- 

 lent and convincing manner, though at times 

 some of them have been thrown into promi- 

 nence not altogether warranted by their im- 

 portance. One easily appreciates the criticism, 

 of the somewhat dogmatic form in whicli 

 statements of facts and theories are too fre- 

 quently made by authors of text-books — such 

 statements are surely enough benumbing to 

 the pupil. The suggestion is good, also, that, 

 so far as possible, the laboratory be used to 

 settle points of uncertainty or of controversy 

 raised in the class room, rather than merely 

 to verify, by measurements, physical laws 

 which are already known by the student far 

 more accurately than his measurements can 

 be made. The author shows, further, that it 

 has been just this attitude, of desire to bridge 

 a gap in knowledge, which has been effective in 

 advancing the science in the past; a student 

 trained to use the laboratory to settle prob- 

 lems, real to him, would be much more likely 

 to find physics of value to him in later years — 

 himself to be of more value to the science. 



