Today, a woman writes a physics text that helps to
define liberal education. The University of
Houston's College of Engineering presents this
series about the machines that make our
civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity
created them.
I've been looking back
through 19th-century texts on natural philosophy.
That's what finally became physics after the Civil
War. The subject of those texts was variable in
1800. They might talk about astronomy, geography,
biology -- whatever the author fancied. Then books
began agreeing on a body of knowledge. The first
place I see that new curriculum is in
Jane Marcet's book, Conversations on
Natural Philosophy, published in London in
1819.
Marcet wrote conversations between a tutor, Mrs. B,
and two young ladies. They talk about materials and
motion; Newton's laws; hydraulics; heat, light, and
electricity. It's beautiful pedagogy by any
measure. New editions came out for 40 years. It was
a very popular book. Many of those editions bore
the names of male authors to cloak the fact that a
woman wrote it. Two of those names were J.L. Blake, and J.L. Comstock.
Their contributions were to add homework questions
to Marcet's book.
When he wrote his own text in 1830, Comstock
changed the tone, but not the content. The easy,
conversational style became authoritative and
didactic. My 1848 copy belonged to a boy at
Phillips Andover Academy -- an influential Eastern
prep school then, and still so today. Comstock's
book was shaping America. And in it are Marcet's
old illustrations -- a little stiffer, a little
less elegant -- but the same pictures.
Meanwhile, an English mathematician named Lardner
started a huge series of textbooks and handbooks.
His 1831 book on mechanics also echoes Marcet. By
1858 young William James was studying Lardner's
natural philosophy text.
Lardner still reflected Marcet's organization. He
expanded her treatment of machinery, which was a
regular part of natural philosophy. In fact, the
model steam engine in the natural philosophy course
at Glasgow was where Watt first learned about
steam.
After the Civil War, writers dropped machines from
those texts. When they did, machines dropped out of
liberal education as well. The focus shifted to
principles, and those principles became a
specialty. Still, Marcet's subject layout remained.
I still see it clearly in today's physics texts.
But we've changed the name of natural philosophy to
physics. We've stopped putting it at the center of
liberal education. Marcet knew it belonged there.
Since women couldn't go to college in her day, she
created a home liberal education course. When she
did, she set the pattern for today's physics
courses. Today, we forget that natural philosophy
belongs at the core of an education. And, as
America falls behind in teaching science, we would
do well to remember where our physics courses came
from.
I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston,
where we're interested in the way inventive minds
work.
(Theme music)
First Elements of Astronomy and Natural
Philosophy, London: G. Sael, 1796. (No author
is given. The only known copy of this book is in
Special Collections, UH Library.)
Marcet, J.H., Conversations on Natural
Philosophy. Boston: Lincoln, Edmonds &
Co., 1834. (This is one of many later editions of
Marcet's book. It bears the name of J.L. Blake on
its title page.)
Lardner, D., and Kater, H., Treatise on
Mechanics. Philadelphia: Carey and Lea,
1831.
Comstock, J.L., A System of Natural
Philosophy. New York: Pratt, Woodford, and
Co., 1848.
Lardner, D., Hand-Book of Natural
Philosophy. London: Walton and Maberly,
1856. (William James's copy of this book, with his
marginal notations, is in the Houghton Library at
Harvard University.)
Rolfe, W.J., and Gillet, J.A.,A Handbook of
Natural Philosophy. Boston: Woolworth,
Ainsworth, & Co., 1868.
Plympton, G.W., and Parker, H.G., A School
Compendium of Natural and Experimental
Philosophy. New York: Collins & Brother,
Publishers, 1871.
Halliday, D., and Resnick, R., Fundamentals
of Physics, New York: John Wiley & Sons,
Inc., 1970. (This is an early edition of a physics
text that is still in use as of this writing in
1994. The chapter headings of this typical modern
text are remarkably close to those in Marcet's
Conversations on Natural Philosophy.)
See also Engines Episodes 900 and 901.
I am grateful to Barbara Nytes-Baron, Special
Collections, and Jeff Fadell, Information Services,
both at the UH library, for their fine help in
getting at material for this episode. Many of the
sources above are available in the UH Special
Collections Department.
From Conversations on Natural
Philosophy, 1834 ed.
Marcet's image of ocular optics
From A System of Natural
Philosophy, 1848)
Comstock's version of Marcet's illustration
From A School Compendium of
Natural and Experimental Philosophy,
1871
Plympton and Parker's version of the drawing
