SCIENTIFIC NOTES. 35 



be made to depend on the secondary school teaching in that subject, 

 when properly organized and conducted, and not vice versa." 



Prominence is here given to this phase because it contains a 

 principle that many of us — especially the university graduates — are 

 too apt to forget. Then, too, an advance in the teaching method of 

 one decade producing an arrest in that of the next is in itself suffi- 

 ciently remarkable, even if the subject were not a scientific one. Yet 

 we find that while Physics has been making a series of rapid and far- 

 reaching advances — the isolation of the electron, the discovery of 

 radio-activity, the experimental investigation of the electrical nature 

 of mass, the problems of the alchemist coming up again in the evolu- 

 tion and devolution of the elements — and while these and many other 

 developments have been given the widest publicity in the daily press 

 and have been followed eagerly by an interested people, that during 

 this very period the teaching of physics in the schools has been ef- 

 fectively held down by the influence of a series of experiments, ex- 

 cellent in themselves, but not suited to the needs of the time. 



Nearly as general as the demand for the deposition of the pre- 

 sent system is the recommendation of a more historical treatment of 

 the subject, to deal not only with the epoch-making men, their diffi- 

 culties and their successes, but to give an outline of the steps by 

 which our chief standards of measurement have been selected. One 

 of the best of the recent elementary text-books has already — and 

 with good effect — introduced portraits and biographical sketches of 

 the " makers of physics." It might be remarked in passing that a 

 reading course in the historical development of the subject, — say a 

 book like Mach's^ — might with good effect be added to university 

 honour courses. 



The contributors to the symposium also criticize that class of 

 teachers who view physics as a mere science of measurement — men 

 whose ideas of the relative importance of the various phenomena 

 seem to be largely determined by the opportunity they offer for exact 

 quantitative determination. It is worthy of note that among those 

 giving emphasis to this point is Professor A. A. Michelson, of 

 Chicago, whose name the world over is associated with the extreme 

 accuracy of modern physical measurement. 



The need for adequately trained and well paid teachers is 

 voiced by several writers. They claim that the physics is too often 

 taken by one of the smallest salaried men on the staff, and one who 



^See above. 



