NATURAL PHILOSOPHY: BY PROFESSOR DRAPER. INTRODUCTION. THE main object of a teacher should be to communicate a clear and general view of the great features of his science, and to do this in an agreeable and short manner. It is too often forgotten that the beginner knows nothing; and the first thing to be done is to awaken in him an interest in the study, and to present to him a view of the scientific relations of those natural objects with which he is most familiar. When his curiosity is aroused, he will readily go through things that are abstract and forbidding; which, had they been presented at first, would have discouraged or perhaps disgusted him. I am persuaded that the superficial knowledge of the physical sciences which so extensively prevails is, in the main, due to the course commonly pursued by teachers. The theory of Forces and of Equilibrium, the laws and phenomena of Motion, are not things likely to allure a beginner; but there is no one so dull as to fail being interested with the wonderful effects of the weight, the pressure, or the elasticity of the air. It may be more consistent with a rigorous course to present the sterner features of science first; but the object of instruction is more certainly attained by offering the agreeable. There are two different methods in which Natual Philosophy is taught :1st, As an experimental science; 2nd, As a branch of mathematics. Each has its own peculiar advantages; and the public teacher will follow the one or the other, according as it is his aim to store the mind of his pupil with a knowledge of the great facts of Nature, or only to give it that drilling which arises from geometrical pursuits. From an extensive comparison of the advantages of these systems, I believe that the proper course is to teach physical science experimentally first-a conviction not only arising from considerations respecting the constitution of the human mind, the amount of mathematical knowledge which students commonly possess, but also from the history of these sciences. Why is it that the most acute mathematicians and metaphysicians the world has ever produced for two thousand years made so little advance in knowledge? and why have the last two centuries produced such a wonderful revolution in human affairs? It is from the lesson first taught by Lord Bacon, that, so liable to fallacy are the operations of the intellect, experiment must always be the great engine of human discovery,—and, therefore, of human advancement. JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER. * The sections throughout this Treatise with brackets are by the Editor. |