366 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 976 



The use of concrete ideas is treated at some 

 length in one of the chapters; the discussion 

 is given in excellent manner. Careful distinc- 

 tion is made between concepts which are 

 merely specific and such as are concrete. The 

 use of concrete elements in leading up to the 

 formulation of general laws and principles is 

 fully discussed. 



Many other points of interest and of real 

 importance to the teacher are considered. For 

 instance, the last chapter of the book is de- 

 voted to a valuable discussion of various 

 methods of examination by which the efficiency 

 of the work in the different features of the 

 course may be tested. 



There are, however, other points which are 

 not so convincing. The author gives (Chap- 

 ter V. and subsequent pages — cf. 109-112, 

 117, 123, 187) a somewhat elaborate develop- 

 ment of the ideas that science is the result of 

 demands made by industrial and commercial 

 growth, and that the habits of " cooperative 

 and democratic industry of the Germanic 

 races " (as contrasted with the " innate, immu- 

 table ideas" of the "aristocratic Greeks") 

 have been all-powerful in building tip our 

 modern physics. Similarly the statement is 

 made and frequently repeated (page 166) that 

 " the man of commerce may think that the 

 world's accounts are settled by money; but the 

 student of real physics . . . knows that energy 

 is the final basis of industrial values." We 

 may agree with these statements, or we may 

 not, as the ease may be, but when the author 

 uses them as partial justification for the con- 

 tention that the energy principle shoiild form 

 the unifying basis of the course in physics to 

 the exclusion of theories and hypotheses, his 

 main arguments foi? such procedure, valid 

 enough iij themselves, lose something of their 

 due force." 



Again, in the chapter on the discipline of 

 physics Professor Mann would be more con- 

 vincing if the statements concerning the 

 transfer of discipline were held within the 

 limits set by the authorities quoted. On page 

 191 is the statement " since a scientific habit of 

 mind, when developed in physics, is not trans- 

 ferable, while a conscious ideal is transferable 



. . ."; as a matter of fact the chosen author- 

 ities would justify nothing more conclusive in 

 statement than that such habit is " probably 

 not " transferable. The most vigorous oppo- 

 nents, among educational psychologists, of the 

 old dogma of formal discipline would probably 

 hold the question as yet open ; this much would 

 be indicated by their recognition of some 

 transfer of discipline, some of them explaining 

 the residual on the theory of common elements, 

 others on the theory of transfer of method. 



Occasional references to the principle of 

 relativity and to the principle of least action, 

 induced apparently by the frequent use of 

 Poincare as authority, are likely to be mis- 

 leading when found in a discussion of the 

 teaching of high-school physics. These prin- 

 ciples are very much in the air in these days, to 

 be sure, but one is hardly justified therefore 

 in stating (p2(g-e 233) that " this idea of max- 

 imum efficiency is valuable as giving a first 

 inkling of the meaning of the principle of 

 least action." 



Even though one may feel inclined, on 

 reading the volume, to differ from some state- 

 ments and may not feel justified in following 

 Professor Mann in constructing a high-school 

 course according to the favorite plan of the 

 author — excluding, as far as possible, con- 

 sideration of theories and hypotheses — yet 

 there remain reasons in plenty to justify the 

 judgment that this is a notably helpful and 

 searching treatment of a much-harrowed field. 

 Difl'ering or not, as the case may be, on specific 

 suggestions and arguments, the reader finishes 

 the book with admiration for its spirit of help- 

 fulness. The book is more valuable, indeed, 

 because it is groxind for some wholesome dif- 

 ference of opinion. 



For his basic contention that physics should 

 be made real to the students and evidently 

 applicable to their every-day life, and that the 

 students should be trained in this application. 

 Professor Mann should have the praise and 

 support of every serious teacher. The high- 

 school teacher should not be left long in doubt, 

 by college and university officers, as to the 

 acceptability of such physics for college en- 

 trance for the relatively few high-school pupils 



