Four Instruments of Confusion in Teaching Physics

These requirements have been such, at least up to the time of the recent modifications, that it has been practically impossible to meet them in any satisfactory manner in schools in which, as is the case for instance in the free high schools of Wisconsin, the subject is almost universally a required one. Even the new requirements are still so largely quantitative in their spirit that there is great room for doubt as to the advisability of attempting to prepare for college unless the doubtful practice, so commonly being adopted, of making the college preparatory an elective course is to prevail. This would mean that if pupils are to be given to any adequate extent the wider view of life and its relations, with a permanent interest in the natural phenomena about them, separate classes must be formed whose work will not count as a preparation for study in a higher school. The results up to this time of the attempts to give to all students a general course which would meet the two purposes have been far from satisfactory from the standpoint of either life or the college. Neither interest nor ability has as a rule been developed. Even in schools having special preparatory classes the subject is elected by comparatively few, and those taking it because they really like it are much fewer still. On the other hand, the attempt to make the general class meet the requirements has resulted in very imperfect ideas coupled too often with