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IOWA ACADEMY OP SCIENCE 
translation of Ganot’s Physics, Everett’s translation of Des Chanel’s Natural 
Philosophy, and the then recent Text-Book of Physics by Professors Anthony 
and Brackett of Cornell University. And while the classical treatises of Fara- 
day, Maxwell, Mascart and Juobert in Electricity and Magnetism; of Lord 
Rayleigh on Theory of Sound; Thomson and Tait’s Natural Philosophy, ante 
date 1887, Maxwell’s Electricity and Magnetism is the only one of them that 
was in the library of the State University at the time, and probably there was 
not another copy of any of these treatises in any college library in the State, 
or, aside from Assistant Professor Veblen, a teacher in the state who had any 
particular use for any of them. 
I am not reliably informed, but there was probably no provision for labora- 
tory work in Physics except at the State University and at Ames. Grinnell had 
an investment of about $2,000 in physical apparatus, the insurance recovered 
after the cyclone of 1882, but the apparatus, while of recent purchase, was 
almost wholly for demonstration work. In this connection we may pause to re- 
call that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a contender for the 
honor of having been the “earliest institution in which laboratory Physics was 
pursued according to a systematic plan for its educational value.” In April, 
1869, Professor Edward C. Pickering was “very anxious to be ready by the 
next October to instruct the third year’s class by laboratory work.” In 1871 
Pickering says “There are now in America at least four similar laboratories in 
operation or in preparation.” One of these was undoubtedly that of. the Uni- 
versity of Iowa, for laboratory work in Physics was begun there by Professor 
Hinrichs in the fall of 1870. From this it is apparent that systematic labora- 
tory instruction in Physics antedates the period under consideration by only 
eighteen years — less than another quarter century. Pickering’s “Physical 
Manipulations,” Glazebrooke and Shaw’s “Practical Physics,” Stewart and Gee’s 
“Practical Physics,” Kohlrausch’s “Physical Measurements,” and Glazebrooke’s 
“Physical Optics” were the sources of inspiration for the instructor in laboratory 
Physics. The Harvard “Descriptive list of Elementary Physical Experiments” 
appeared in 1887 and was the beginning of systematic laboratory instruction 
in elementary Physics. 
I judge that it would be a liberal estimate to say that probably a hundred 
students a year were receiving some instruction in Physics in the colleges of 
Iowa. This was mainly text-book instruction with the solution of numerical 
problems, mostly elementary, and certainly considerable of it of a grade that 
would now belong in the secondary schools. 
At the present time there are at least fifteen colleges in the State that offer 
a course in General Physics, given by an instructor, who, at least from the 
point of view of educational training in the subject, is as competent as any one 
teaching Physics in Iowa in 1887. Eight of these offer courses in advance of 
a year course in General Physics. Pour colleges besides those of the State 
institutions probably have better equipped laboratories in Physics than had 
the State University in 1887; and all have abundantly better texts and laboratory 
experiments than were available at that time. 
So nearly as I can judge from the information at hand there must be about 
seven hundred and fifty students taking college courses annually in Physics in 
the colleges of the State, of whom fully one hundred are in advanced courses. 
Several of the colleges in addition to the State College and the University are 
