No one will affirm that to a class of whose numbers some have never had high school physics a course that is really analytical can be given. Wherever a rigorous analytic course is given those who have been well trained in descriptive physics do well in it in general. Let us not beg the question by giving such physics in a college that does not require high school preparation. The college curriculum is full enough as it is without duplication of high school work, and any college physics course that is a first course is essentially a high school course.
Let us rather put the responsibility squarely where it lies. The high school will respond if the urgency is made clear. Witness some of them in our cities already attempting the junior college idea, an idea that has not been unsuccessful in some of our private schools. If it is made clear that a thoroughgoing course in descriptive physics is a paramount necessity in college work and that no effort will be spared on the part of the university to insure this quality, the men will be found and the proper courses given.
Preparatory work in mathematics essential for success in college physics
We favor a comprehensive examination plan in all cases where the quality of the high school work is either unknown or open to question.
Familiarity, likewise, with the most elementary uses of mathematics should be insured. It would be highly desirable that a course of collegiate grade in trigonometry should immediately precede the physics. This is not because the details of trigonometry are all needed in physics. In fact, a few who have never had trigonometry make a conspicuous success in physics. These, however, are ones who have a natural facility in analysis. To keep them out because of failure to have had a prerequisite course in trigonometry often works an unnecessary hardship. We would argue, therefore, for a formal prerequisite on this subject, reserving for certain students exemption, which should be determined in all cases, if not by the instructor himself, at least by his coöperation with some advisory administrative officer.
Need of testing each student's preparation
Nor is it sufficient with regard to the mathematical preparation or the knowledge of high school physics in either case to go exclusively by the official credit record of the student. It is our firm conviction from several years' experience where widely different aims in the student body are represented that above and beyond all formal records attention to the individual case is of prime importance. The opening week of the course should be so conducted that those who are obviously unequipped can be located and directed elsewhere into the proper work. How this may best be accomplished can be determined only by the circumstances in the individual school, we imagine. Daily tests covering the simplest descriptive information that should be retained from high school physics and requiring the intelligent use of arithmetic, elementary algebra, and geometry will reveal amazing incapacity in these things. Tuttle, in his little book entitled An Introduction to Laboratory Physics (Jefferson Laboratory of Physics, Philadelphia, 1915), gives on pages 15-16 an excellent list of questions of this sort. Any one with teaching experience in the subject whatever can make up an equally good one suited for his special needs and temperament. It should not be assumed that all who fail in such tests should be dropped. Some undoubtedly should be sent back to high school work or its equivalent; others may need double the required work in mathematics to overcome their unreadiness in its use. Personal contacts will show that some are drifting into a scientific course who have no aptitude for it and who will be doomed to disappointment should they continue. In a word, then, we are convinced that the more carefully one plans the work of the first week or so the more smoothly does the work of the rest of the year follow. The number of failures may be reduced to a few per cent without in any way relaxing the standard of the course.
Methods of teaching college physics
With regard to the organization of the college courses in physics there seems to us to be at least one method that leads to a considerable degree of success. This is not the lecture method of instruction; neither is it a wholly unmitigated laboratory method.
Lecture method vs. laboratory method