394 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 90. 



mental endowment when the facts have 

 long been forgotten. 



Physics can be taught so as to be a sub- 

 ject of the greatest possible educational 

 value, but when it is so it is not so much 

 because the student acquires a knowledge 

 of a number of interesting and important 

 facts, as by the mental training the study 

 affords in, as Maxwell said, ' bringing our 

 theoretical knowledge to bear on the objects 

 and the objects on our theoretical knowl- 

 edge.' I think this training can be got 

 better by going very slowly through such a 

 subject as mechanics, making the students 

 try innumerable experiments of the simplest 

 and, what is a matter of importance in 

 school teaching, of the most inexpensive 

 kind, but always endeavoring to arrive at 

 numerical results, rather than by attempt- 

 ing to cover the whole range of me- 

 chanics, light, heat, sound, elecbricity and 

 magnetism. I confess I regret the presence 

 in examinations intended for school boys of 

 many of these subjects. 



I think, too, that in the teaching of phys- 

 ics at our universities, there is perhaps 

 a tendency to make the course too complex 

 and too complete. I refer especially to the 

 training of those students who intend to 

 become physicists. I think that after a 

 student has been trained to take accurate 

 observations, to be alive to those pitfalls 

 and errors to which all experiments are 

 liable ; mischief may in some cases be 

 done if he is kept performing elaborate 

 experiments, the results of which are well 

 known with the view of learning a knowl- 

 edge of methods. It is not given to 

 many to wear a load of learning lightly as 

 a flower. With many students a load of 

 learning, especially if it takes a long time 

 to acquire it, is apt to crush enthusiasm. 

 Now, there is, I think, hardly any quality 

 more essential to success in physical inves- 

 tigations than enthusiasm. Any investiga- 

 tion in experimental physics requires a 



large expenditure of both time and patience; 

 the apparatus seldom, if ever, begins by 

 behaving as it ought ; there are times when 

 all the forces of nature, all the properties 

 of matter, seem to be fighting against you ; 

 the instruments behave in the most capri- 

 cious way, and we appreciate Coutts Trot- 

 ter's saying, that the doctrine of the con- 

 stancy of nature was never discovered in a 

 laboratory. 



These difficulties have to be overcome, 

 but it may take weeks or months to do so, 

 and unless the student is enthusiastic, he is 

 apt to retire disheartened from the contest. 

 I think, therefore, that the preservation of 

 youthful enthusiasm is one of the most im- 

 portant points for consideration in the 

 training of physicists. In my opinion this 

 can best be done by allowing the student, 

 even before he is supposed to be acquainted 

 with the whole of physics, to begin some 

 original research of a simple kind under the 

 guidance of a teacher who will encourage 

 him and assist in the removal of difficulties. 

 If the student once tastes the delights of the 

 successful completion of an investigation, he 

 is not likely to go back, and will be better 

 equipped for investigating the secrets of 

 nature than if, like the White Knight in 

 ' Alice of Wonderland,' he commenced his 

 career provided with the means of measur- 

 ing or weighing every physical quantity un- 

 der the sun, but with little desire or enthu- 

 siasm to have anything to do with any of 

 them. Even for those students who intend 

 to devote themselves to other pursuits than 

 phj^sical investigation, the benefits derived 

 from original investigation as a means of 

 general education can hardly be over-esti- 

 mated, the necessity it entails of independ- 

 ent thought, perseverance in overcoming 

 difficulties, and the weighing of evidence 

 gives it an educational value which can 

 hardly be rivalled. We have to congratu- 

 late ourselves that through the munificence 

 of Mr. Ludwig Mond, in building and en- 



