To kindle inspiration and enthusiasm nothing can equal the contact in lectures with others, preferably leaders in their profession, but at least men who possess one of these qualities. Such contacts need not be frequent; indeed, they should not be. The speaker is apt to make more effort, the student to be more responsive, if such occasions are relatively rare. Even thus, although real information is imparted at such a time, it is seldom acquired. However, perspective is furnished, interest stimulated, and the occasion enjoyed.
=Limitations of exclusive use of each method=
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.
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.