7th April 1857.
Sir
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your circular of the 15th of January,1 and in reference to the subject of it—the Educational Museum2—would beg to make the following remarks.
Two things I imagine to be essential to establish a healthy relationship between such a museum and the general education of the country. The collection should enhance the machinery of public instruction; and teachers should possess the knowledge requisite to enable them to make proper use of these tools. With reference to the first point, as far as it bears upon physics, manufacturers of instruments and diagrams are very imperfectly acquainted with what may be done in the way of efficient experimental demonstration; and hence instructions and suggestions, relative to the nature of the objects with which it would be desirable to supply the museum will be necessary.
Let me illustrate my meaning by reference to the subject of Acoustics, which stands first upon your list under the general head of physics. It is possible to go to considerable [expense] in the experimental illustration of this subject by resorting to the instruments usually constructed for such illustration; but it is equally possible, by making use of those simple means which reveal themselves in the practice of those who make experimental science their especial study, to effect the same object at a small fraction of the usual outlay. With half a crown’s worth of India rubber tubing,3 for example, the phenomena of progressive and stationary undulations; the nodes and neutral segments of vibrating cords; the division of a string into its harmonic parts; the coexistence of vibrations; the so called sympathetic communication of vibrations, might all be rendered visible to a class in a more effectual and instructive manner than by means of the apparatus usually sold to illustrate these things at, perhaps, ten times the cost. In short the longitudinal and transverse vibrations of strings, rods, and plates, with their associated musical sounds; the tones of disks, bells &c. might be illustrated at an expense which, I am inclined to think, would be deemed incredible by those who are unaccustomed to create their own means of experimental illustration.
I have taken the case of Acoustics as an illustration simply, because I found it first upon the list. The principal phenomena of Light, Heat, Electricity, & Magnetism, might be illustrated by similar simple means.
But it is manifest that the power of rendering such means vital for instruction must reside in the teachers themselves. It is useless to place four feet of India rubber tubing in the hands of a schoolmaster, without teaching him how to extract its virtues. Hence the necessity of some means of instruction by which teachers should be shown the use of the instruments in the collection; not merely by seeing the experiments made, but by being taught to make the experiments themselves.
The museum then may be regarded as standing midway between the manufacturer and the teacher. The former will require definite instructions [as] to the nature of the objects required, leaving of course an ample margin for the application of individual skill. [These] instructions, if they embrace all that is possible at the present day, will have the effect of introducing many new means of illustration. But to render these means available teachers must be instructed in the proper use of them. These [two] conditions, as far as physics are concerned, appear to me essential to the efficiency of the Museum, and by attending to them great good may, I think, be accomplished.
I can hardly conclude, however, without throwing out the suggestion that too much may be expected from the machinery of education. No machinery, however perfect, can supply the spirit which ought ever to animate the practice of the true teacher. Give two men the selfsame machinery—one will cause his school to prosper, while the other will just as certainly produce the opposite effect. Means are essential, but men are far more so; and except to those practically acquainted with the fact it is scarcely possible to conceive the amount of incompetence, and worse than incompetence, which is afloat in this Country under the general designation of School Master. But further reference to this subject would not be pertinent here and I therefore subscribe myself
Your obedient servant | John Tyndall
Lyon Playfair &c. &c. &c.
RI MS JT/1/T/1125
receipt of your circular of the 15th of January: letter and circular missing. Playfair wrote to Tyndall on 7 January 1857 (letter 1312), and discussed the role of the state in providing science instruction to its citizens. The circular is possibly an extract of the appendices of the Department of Science and Art, Fourth Report, Command Paper 2240 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1857), in particular pp. 27–30. Playfair was the secretary and author of the report.
Educational Museum: the Educational Museum was one of several museums housed in the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), which opened on 22 June 1857. Beyond the art museums, these included ‘the Patent Museum, the Museum of Animal Products, the Food Collection, the Museum of Construction and the Educational Museum’. See B. Robertson, ‘The South Kensington Museum in context: an alternative history’, Museum and Society, 2 (2004), pp. 1–14, on p. 6.
half a crown’s worth of India rubber tubing: tubing made from natural rubber or caoutchouc, the coagulated latex of certain trees and other plants of South America, Africa, Indonesia, etc., which forms a highly flexible substance (OED).
Please cite as “Tyndall1369,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on