1885. J 
A nalyses of Books. 
229 
Practical Physics. By R. T. Glazebrook, M.A., F.R.S., and 
W. N. Shaw, M.A., Demonstrators at the Cavendish La- 
boratory, Cambridge. London : Longmans, Green, and Co. 
Physical manuals and handbooks, each duly fitted with a tail- 
piece of the questions set at this or the other examination in 
yeais bye-gone, are threatening to become as great a nuisance 
as the corresponding class of books on chemistry have been. 
The work beloie us, we are happy to say, is of a quite different 
stamp. The authors do not propose to cram readers with a mere 
word-knowledge of instruments, processes, and results, but they 
teach the true student the art of learning by experiment. 
I he plan in use in the Cavendish Laboratory is one which 
deserves to be more widely known and followed in this country. 
It requires, of course, a complete set of apparatus ; but any de- 
partment of physical science taught without apparatus, and 
consequently without experiments, had better not have been 
taught at all. 
The present work is a collection of the MS. details of the 
different experiments conducted in the elementary classes in 
practical physics. The authors, in their very interesting 
Preface, tell us that in their course of instruction the apparatus 
referred to in each section is placed together on a table. The 
students are arranged, for the most part, in pairs, and before 
each day’s work the demonstrator in charge of the class 
assigns to each pair of students one experiment, A list sus- 
pended in the Laboratory shows the names of the students and 
the experiment assigned to each, so that each member of the 
class can know the section at which he is to work. He is then 
set before the necessary apparatus with the MS. book for his 
guidance, and if he meets with any difficulty it is explained by 
the demonstrator. The results are entered in books in a form 
provided, and after the class is over these books are collected 
and the entries examined. If the entries are correct a new 
section is assigned to the student; otherwise a note of the case 
is made in the class list, and the student’s attention is called to 
it, or if necessary the experiment is repeated. 
We may safely say that if this method of instruction is 
persevered in we shall have a crop of discoverers in physics 
springing up in place of men who have merely absorbed the 
results of their predecessors. 
