When we shall be able to employ in scientific education, not only the
trained attention of the student, and his familiarity with symbols,
but the keenness of his eye, the quickness of his ear, the delicacy of
his touch, and the adroitness of his fingers, we shall not only extend
our influence over a class of men who are not fond of cold
abstractions, but, by opening at once all the gateways of knowledge,
we shall ensure the association of the doctrines of science with those
elementary sensations which form the obscure background of all our
conscious thoughts, and which lend a vividness and relief to ideas,
which, when presented as mere abstract terms, are apt to fade entirely
from the memory.
In a course of Experimental Physics we may consider either the Physics
or the Experiments as the leading feature. We may either employ the
experiments to illustrate the phenomena of a particular branch of
Physics, or we may make some physical research in order to exemplify a
particular experimental method. In the order of time, we should
begin, in the Lecture Room, with a course of lectures on some branch
of Physics aided by experiments of illustration, and conclude, in the
Laboratory, with a course of experiments of research.
Let me say a few words on these two classes of
experiments,--Experiments of Illustration and Experiments of Research.
The aim of an experiment of illustration is to throw light upon some
scientific idea so that the student may be enabled to grasp it. The
circumstances of the experiment are so arranged that the phenomenon
which we wish to observe or to exhibit is brought into prominence,
instead of being obscured and entangled among other phenomena, as it
is when it occurs in the ordinary course of nature. To exhibit
illustrative experiments, to encourage others to make them, and to
cultivate in every way the ideas on which they throw light, forms an
important part of our duty. The simpler the materials of an
illustrative experiment, and the more familiar they are to the
student, the more thoroughly is he likely to acquire the idea which it
is meant to illustrate. The educational value of such experiments is
often inversely proportional to the complexity of the apparatus. The
student who uses home-made apparatus, which is always going wrong,
often learns more than one who has the use of carefully adjusted
instruments, to which he is apt to trust, and which he dares not take
to pieces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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