hod=

For the real acquisition of scientific information, the great method
is the working out of a laboratory exercise and pertinent problems,
with informal guidance in the atmosphere of active study and
discussion engendered among a small group,--the laboratory method.
Taken alone, it is apt to become mechanical and uninteresting and the
outlook to be obscured by details. Lectures, especially demonstration
lectures, are needed to vitalize and inspire. Moreover, many of the
most vivid illustrations of physical principles that occur on every
hand to focus the popular attention are never met with in the college
course because they are unsuited for inexperienced hands or not
readily amenable to quantitative experimentation. The more informally
such demonstrations can be conducted, the more enthusiastically they
are received.

=Aims of the laboratory method=

With regard to laboratory work, accuracy in moderate degree is
important, but too great insistence upon it is apt to overshadow the
higher aim; namely, that of the analysis of the phenomena themselves.
A determination of the pressure coefficient of a gas to half a per
cent, accompanied by a clear visualization of the mechanism by which a
gas exerts a pressure and a usable identification of temperature with
kinetic agitation, would seem preferable to an experimental error of a
tenth per cent which may be exacted which is unaccompanied by these
inspiring and rather modern points of view. Especially in electricity
is a familiarity with the essentials of the modern theories important.
Here supplementary lectures are of great necessity, for no textbook
keeps pace with progress in this tremendously important field. Problem
solving with class discussion is absolutely essential, and should
occupy at least one third of the entire time. In no other way can one
be convinced that the student is doing anything more than committing
to memory, or blindly following directions with no reaction of his
own.

=Value of the supplementary lecture=

The incorporation recently of this idea into the courses at the
University of Chicago has been very successful. Five sections which
are under different instructors are combined one day a week at an hour
when there are no other university engagements, for a lecture
demonstration. This is given by a senior member of the staff whenever
possible. The other meetings during the week are conducted by the
individual instructors and consist of two