against it. No good can be more than temporarily installed until the sentiment of the people has been so molded that it really believes in and supports the project. It is, therefore, the business of the teachers in their collective unity to use every legitimate means to establish and maintain a public sentiment that will render possible efficiency in the schools.

A community with such a sentiment will tax itself sufficiently to support its schools. It will not turn over the erection of its school buildings to politicians, who by the distribution of fat contracts to henchmen may pay political debts. It will not allow janitorships to be distributed to those who are lazy, incompetent, or indifferent, because the boss of the ward is entitled to so many places. It will resist waste and extravagance, not for the purpose of being stingy or parsimonious nor to the end that the taxes may be reduced, but because it feels that in order to get the most for its money as large a portion as possible of the available funds should be devoted to the channels of school expenditure which most directly affect efficiency. It will fight to prevent the distribution of teachers' positions as political patronage, and may, perchance, come some day to feel ashamed that it pays its teachers less than the average wages of the men who work upon its streets or the women who wash its windows.

The first duty, therefore, of the teacher is to see that her own room is efficiently taught. Her second is to take an intelligent and active part in the collective effort of the teaching force to create a public sentiment which shall establish and maintain conditions that render efficient service possible.

Lastly, let us consider the relation of the superintendent to the lines of reorganization we have considered. Of him, as of the teachers, it may too often be said that he lacks breadth of business experience sufficient to enable him to devise and establish a systematic business organization. He must, however, if competent, be big enough to comprehend the problem in the major outlines to the end that all efforts to promote economy may at the same time increase efficiency. His first and final purpose should be educational efficiency. He must, therefore, at one time be the strenuous opponent of efforts at economy, which, tho of appealing merit on the financial side, yet would

be harmful to efficiency. At another time he must be quite as vigorously urging economy so that money may be saved in one direction for the purpose of establishing or maintaining somewhere else that which is of greater educational value. While he may not devise the administrative system of the finances, it is for him to be the expert adviser of those who do; to gather together the bits of information furnished by individual teachers; to collect evidence of waste and extravagance in many places; to carry in mind the protests, and to give the whole such effectiveness of form and to choose with such tact the time and place of its presentation that it may be listened to as coming from one who speaks with the authority of full and complete information.

It is his business to maintain the schools at the highest possible standard of efficiency, and to do it with the amount of money set aside for that purpose. Or, if this be insufficient, he must be so strong of purpose, so resourceful in argument, so recognized as a man of integrity and honesty, that he may summon to the aid of the schools all the forces which go to make up a healthy and enlightened public sentiment—a public sentiment not only willing, but insisting that the schools shall have every dollar that can be wisely and profitably used.

On the other hand, he must be a leader in education. It is his to see that only efficient teachers are secured or retained, but especially must he see that the conditions under which the teachers work are such that the highest efficiency is possible. He must not be the taskmaster driving the workers to the greatest possible effort, but rather, the wise overseer who promotes efficiency by enlarging for each teacher the possible field of effective service, a field which she shall willingly and gladly fill of her own initiative.

As protector and friend his relations to the teaching force may be of greater value even than his educational leadership. When false standards of economy threaten to reduce salaries, or false standards of efficiency, whether those of the public outside or of subordinate officials inside, create harassing conditions, he should be such a man as will bring effectively to the rescue the collective efforts of the teacher, unite with these a

multitude of forces external to the school, and form the whole into an impregnable defense behind which the schools and the school-teachers may remain unharmed.

Finally, it is upon his personality and character that the avoidance of the third great danger depends. If he lacks the stamina, if he is deficient in courage, if he is wanting in tireless energy or in tact, the questionable influences of politics will encroach upon the schools. It is his business to distinguish clearly that recommendation which is founded upon knowledge of efficiency, from that recommendation which is made from political expediency or that which finds its real basis in friendship.

He must be clear-headed enough to distinguish his own friendships from his professional opinions, to exalt the duty of his position above his desire as a friend, and to recommend appointment or promotion to those personally less agreeable to him, if they are professionally the better equipped. Only when it is clear that he is not "building a machine," that he is not “taking care of his friends," but that his sole aim is fair play and promotion according to professional ability, can he hope to secure the confidence of a public which for a generation has been accustomed to see its public officials governed by friendship and political expediency.

It is for the public to carry forward the reorganization as they must and will. It is for the teacher to see that the work of the schools is efficiently done and to contribute as much as possible towards the establishment and guidance of public opinion. It is for the superintendent to stand between these two forces, guiding and advising each; at one time using public opinion to force something upon the schools, at another valiantly defending the schools from the attacks of a public sentiment temporarily inspired by false standards. He must for the public be at the same time both servant and master, and for the teachers both leader and friend.

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS,

CLEVELAND, OHIO

STRATTON D. BROOKS

III

MODERN TREND OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY TEACHING 1

The excellent paper on College Entrance Examinations * which was read at your meeting one month ago contains one suggestion which I heartily adopt as the central theme of this paper. It is more descriptive and less mathematical physics (and I may add) chemistry.

The history of physics teaching in secondary schools for the last 25 years naturally divides itself into two periods. During the first 13 years of this period physics was taught without help or hindrance from the colleges, and it progressed against fearful odds until 24 per cent. of all secondary-school pupils were studying the subject; during the last 12 years the colleges have dominated the physics teaching in the secondary schools thru their syllabi interpreted and enforced by their examinations, and it has declined until the number of pupils in physics has been reduced to 10 per cent. Twelve years ago 24 per cent. of the students took it voluntarily; now a considerable portion of the 10 per cent. take it only by compulsion.

The kind of physics which was taught during the first period is well represented in the earlier editions of Gage's and Avery's text-books. It was descriptive of matter of universal interest and abundantly illustrated by experiments exceedingly well adapted to make the subject real. I have been collecting testimony for the past 18 years from persons all over the country who studied physics then, and I find that the general feeling is that it was both interesting and profitable. Such testimony has been steadily changing into adverse criticism of the physics teaching of the last 12 years.

In recent years physics teaching in the colleges also has been 1 Paper read at meeting of New York Schoolmasters Association, December,

9, 1905.

By Mr. Wilson Farrand. See EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, January, 1906.

growing more unsatisfactory to general students. It is becoming more and more deficient in both the humanitarian and the practical elements. It does little for general culture and less for common sense. It is good preparation for neither investigators nor engineers, and least of all for the ordinary citizen. In recent times college men have set out to know only one thing, and have omitted to conquer a sufficient field of related knowledge to understand any one thing well enough to teach it. We have witnessed the attempt to force the worst features of college instruction upon the secondary schools and we have in many cases seen young men come directly from such a régime of college physics to teach in our secondary schools. They confine themselves to that disjointed skeleton of dry bones, the forty quantitative experiments. They use them as simply isolated, detached mathematical problems. They make no logical connections. They know little of an articulate whole. They know nothing of practical applications of physical principles, and they know nothing of the correlations of physics and chemistry with botany, zoölogy, physiology, geology, geography, and the like. Of course they cannot clothe their skeleton of forty experiments with symmetry and beauty, for they have never been taught any such thing in physics. They deal in academic discussions about per cents. of error. They present nothing as organized common sense, which was Huxley's idea of science. It is not because these college entrance requirements are difficult, but because they are a misfit that they are uninteresting and the pupils have the good sense to dislike them. Until the makers of the physics syllabus exhibit a greater knowledge of the science of teaching, we may conclude that the desires of the great majority of high school pupils furnish us the safest guide to what is pedagogically correct. As one of your members said here last month, "These college entrance requirements have been shaped by specialists whose interest has been in the subject rather than in the student." They do not understand high school pupils. How can they understand what will fit them for college? The chief trouble with high school pupils when they pass into college is not that they are deficient in mathematics or in the art of making accurate measurements, but that they