SCIENTIFIC NOTES. 



A PROBLEM IN EDUCATION. 



31 



The educationalists who introduced elementary science into 

 the curricula of the secondary schools are commonly supposed to 

 have done so with a two- fold object. They probably wished the 

 pupils to have an opportunity of becoming familiar with the point 

 of view and with the method of science; and at the same time de- 

 sired them to obtain a knowledge of the principles that underlie the 

 phenomena more commonly met with in the average citizen's life. 

 To this end the study of physics was selected, largely because it, 

 more perhaps than any other subject, takes for a basis that mass 

 of experience that every normal child brings with him into the class- 

 room ; for as Mach^ points out : " Everything which we observe in 

 nature imprints itself uncomprehended and unaiialyzed in our per- 

 cepts and ideas. ... In these accumulated experiences we pos- 

 sess a treasure-store which is ever close at hand and of which only 

 the smallest portion is embodied in clear articulate thought." It is, 

 then, in this so-called " instinctive knowledge " that the science of 

 physics has its foundation ; and it is on account of the fact that this 

 material is already available in the case of every pupil that the teach- 

 ing of physics forms the best possible means of conveying to be- 

 ginners the method of the scientific examination of nature. 



The wisdom of attempting this work in the schools is seldom 

 strongly disputed. Recently, however, there has sprung up a very 

 general questioning as to the measure of success that has attended it. 

 This must not be taken to mean that any large portion of the educa- 

 tional community thinks that the study of physics has absolutely 

 failed of its purpose — especially as compared with the success at- 

 tained in some other parts of the curriculum — but the doubt is again 

 and again raised, " Has the teaching of physics succeeded in any full 

 measure in giving the training that may fairly be expected from it? 

 and, if not, what is the cause of the failure?" This question, be it 

 noted, comes chiefly from the teachers themselves. It is the inten- 

 tion of the following paragraphs to give a short account of the pre- 

 sent state of this introspective movement. 



In December, 1905, The Central Association of Science and 

 Mathematics Teachers, meeting at Chicago, took up this problem; 

 and about sixteen hundred copies of a four page leaflet, entitled "A 



^Mach: Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung historisch-kritisch darge- 

 stellt. Translated under the title, " The Science of Mechanics." The Open 

 Court Publishing Co., Chicago. 



