In the 1920s and 1930s, physics education in Chinese universities was in its infancy. There are a group of pioneers who love the motherland's physics education. They are aware of the importance of improving physics education in China, and are determined to face up to difficulties and contribute their own strength. They either went abroad for further study or organized their efforts at home, which laid the foundation for physics education in colleges and universities. After 1930s, overseas students returned to China one after another, enriching their own strength. In a short period of time, through their efforts, physics education in Chinese universities has begun to take shape.

First, the development of basic physics education

In the early years of the Republic of China, Peking University, formerly known as Shi Jing University Hall, was the only official national university in China. Later, universities in some places, such as Beiyang University and Nanyang Public College, mainly focused on engineering and industry, but general science and engineering schools and normal colleges all took general physics as the basic course, while other courses, such as theoretical physics, applied physics, modern physics and experimental physics, were offered according to their own characteristics, needs and conditions, which were quite different and generally weak. Peking University is a regular university. The subject setting and equipment are quite complete. 19 17 When educator Cai Yuanpei was the principal, the school was reorganized and reformed. By 19 19, Peking University took the lead in becoming a comprehensive university with 14 department. Among domestic universities, the department of physics was the earliest established. Cai Yuanpei 1923 left school, but the school still retains the educational tradition he initiated. At this time, the school is divided into three levels: preparatory, undergraduate and research. The preparatory course is a two-year course, which is divided into two parts: A and B. The compulsory courses of preparatory course A are mainly mathematics, physics and chemistry. In addition to compulsory courses, elective courses also include physical experiments and chemical experiments. These courses prepare for undergraduate study. The entrance requirements and entrance examination of Peking University are very strict, because preparatory students are the main source of undergraduate students, so applicants for preparatory courses have to go through preliminary examination and re-examination, and there are some difficult physics questions in the entrance examination of preparatory courses. Undergraduate candidates should determine the examination subjects according to the requirements of different disciplines. If you apply for physics, you should take physical knowledge and experiments. Because of strict examination requirements and good student foundation, it has played a positive role in improving teaching level after entering school.

In terms of discipline construction, during Cai Yuanpei's tenure as principal, many well-known professors with academic expertise in China were concentrated as teachers. Pay equal attention to improvement and foundation. The courses of physics department are divided into three levels. Elementary physics is studied in the preparatory course, general physics is taught in grade one or two, and professional physics is taught in grade three or four. The general physics course is divided into (1) and (2) sections. The general physics course (1) includes physical properties, heat and acoustics, and the lecturer is Li Shuhua. The content of general physics (II) includes magnetism and optics, and the teachers are Yang Zhao and Ye respectively. Specialized physics courses include mathematical physics, thermodynamics and fretting theory, optical physics, applied electricity, DC and alternating current, electric oscillation, electronic theory, X-ray and radiation theory, mass theory, relativity and so on. The keynote speakers are Yu Jie, Guang, Ding, Yang Zhao, Wen Yuqing and Ye. Elective subjects include elementary mechanics, theoretical mechanics, calculus, differential equations, solid analytic geometry, advanced calculus, inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, chemical experiments and so on. At that time, private schools, the size of which was equivalent to Nankai University in Tianjin, were also famous for their physics teaching. It is the earliest private university founded in China, formerly known as Nankai School, founded in 19 19. At first, there were three subjects: primary school, middle school, girls' middle school and university, with a total of more than 2000 students. This is an influential private school in the north. 1922, Rao Yutai returned from the United States, founded the physics department, and served as the dean and head of the physics department. The faculty of physics department is gradually enriched, and the courses are gradually completed, especially the experimental courses. In addition to Chinese and foreign languages, compulsory courses in general physics and calculus are offered in the first year, modern physics, theoretical mechanics and advanced calculus in the second year, advanced optics, DC and alternating current, gas motion theory, thermodynamics and differential equations in the third year, and advanced electromagnetics, modern physics, radio and research topics in the fourth year. These courses all reached the new level of physics development at that time.

Tsinghua University's predecessor was Tsinghua School. When 19 1 1 was established, there were advanced and secondary subjects. 1925 set up an undergraduate department to recruit four-year college students. 1926 when the physics department was founded, there were only two professors, He Ye, who were hired year by year. 1928 was renamed Tsinghua University, and by 1932, the scale of the department was basically finalized. Six or seven professors, including Wu, Sabendong, Zhou Peiyuan, and Shi, participated in the construction of the department. Since then, Tsinghua has gradually developed into a comprehensive university focusing on engineering, but the Department of Physics has always maintained a strong faculty and equipment. Therefore, both the undergraduate course of physics department and the disciplines of various engineering departments have a good foundation and trained many outstanding talents in science and engineering.

By the mid-1930s, many public and private universities and normal universities had successively set up physics or mathematics departments. There were about 30 departments, and about 300 to 400 people took part in the work of physics and mathematics departments. Because physics is the foundation of all sciences, physics teachers also have the task of teaching physics in related departments, laying a good foundation for science and engineering students. In addition to undergraduate teaching, some departments also have physics research institutes, such as 1928, Peking University, Tsinghua, Zhejiang University, Zhong Da University, Zhongshan University, Wuda University and Yanjing University, which can award bachelor of science and master of science degrees respectively. In order to train teachers, some schools stipulate that in addition to majoring in physics, they also need to minor in chemistry or mathematics for certain credits; Some also stipulate that some credits must be taken in the courses of the education department; Some schools have strong engineering teachers and equipment and can take part-time engineering courses; Or implement a dual-degree system, that is, after obtaining a degree from the Department of Physics, you can take courses from another related department, which can avoid taking public required courses. On the contrary, after obtaining degrees from other departments, you can also take several compulsory courses in the Department of Physics and obtain degrees from two departments. In all these cases, we pay attention to broaden our knowledge, strengthen the horizontal connection between disciplines, and give full play to their respective specialties. This flexible and diverse course selection system is also worth learning from in the future education reform.

Second, physics textbooks

Physics teaching in China's colleges and universities first studied Japan, then Britain and America. Not many people came back from studying physics in Britain and America at the beginning, so some of the early physics teachers taught with foreign students while teaching. Due to the characteristics of teaching at that time and the low English level of freshmen, the published textbooks are often in the form of original, interpretation and translation. In most schools, teachers give lectures, students take notes, or teachers write simple lecture outlines. During the Republic of China, there were not many ready-made textbooks used in colleges and universities, and there were the following general physics textbooks:

1.Teff physics (see illustration 17, 18 for cover and cover).

Most missionary universities adopt General Physics edited by AWillmerDuff (later translated into Duff Physics). Due to the lack of suitable teaching materials, many public and private schools also use this book as a teaching material. Soon, the book had a Chinese translation, translated by Zhang, and revised by seven people, including Qiu, Yang Zhao, Ren Zhigong, Li Ximou and Xi. The first edition of this book was earlier (1908). Teff was the editor-in-chief, levis was the author of Wave and Optics, and Paige and Hale revised it. Morton Hale was the author of Heat, Kemen and Naber were the authors of Electromagnetism, and Teff also wrote Mechanics and Acoustics. In the seventh revision, the author made many modifications and supplements to wave, optics and electromagnetism to meet the needs of the times. Originally, this book was used as a textbook for science and engineering. Because it is concise, easy to understand and easy to understand, it is also suitable as a textbook for general physics. This book has many co-authors, all of whom are American university teachers. The editor-in-chief said in the preface: "A textbook of general physics in colleges and universities, written by several authors, is a pioneering work, and the reasons should be explained. This book was written by seven experienced university teachers. I hope it is more suitable than other textbooks now, and teachers in other schools can also use it. There are one or two characteristics that need attention: the beginning of this book is relatively clear, and it is suitable for speech rather than writing because of repeated descriptions. The author's description of this book is concise and thorough, and all students who are easy to understand, analyze and discuss subtly and are suitable for advanced learning are not included. The book first introduces the concept of "energy" in the introduction. He said: There are all kinds of substances around us, among which there are many similar characteristics, such as inertia, weight and elasticity, and many things called "energy" show the interaction between objects. (The "energy" here seems to mean "field", so the author notes), these are all familiar in nature. " Then physics is defined as "the science of studying the properties of matter and energy". Subsequently, the concept of "energy" was constantly strengthened in various branches of physics such as mechanics, heat, electricity and optics. Finally, in the "photoelectric effect" section, photons and energy are briefly summarized. It can be said that this book unifies the viewpoint of energy use in all parts of physics, so it is very appropriate to use this book as a basic textbook of physics.

The system of "Teff Physics" was later adopted by many textbooks. Its system and the distribution of its parts are physical properties and mechanics (about 25.2%), heat (15.5%), wave theory (4%), electromagnetism (3 1.3%), acoustics (4%) and optics (665.438+0.3%). At that time, we didn't know enough about the nature of light, and we basically looked at it from the perspective of "ether". Only in the last part of optics, we mentioned the suspicion of "ether" in lowercase letters, and thought that further discussion of this problem was beyond the scope of this book. Several textbooks of the same era, such as "Physics" by Duncan & Stellin and Stuart's book, are basically similar.

2. Sabendong's General Physics

The textbooks used by Peking University are slightly deeper than those used by ordinary schools, and all of them are taught by teachers with reference to new foreign versions. But within the scope of general physics, the content can only be based on classical physics. After 1930s, according to China's teaching experience, lecture notes were gradually compiled and used. Among the earliest University Series compiled and published by the Commercial Press in China, there is General Physics edited by Sabendong (1933) with General Physics Experiment (1935). Sabendong 1928 taught in Tsinghua University for nine years after returning from studying in the United States. During this period, he also wrote five or six books on electricity and mathematics. But the above two books are the most commonly used and take the longest time. This book is divided into two volumes, the first volume is introduction, mechanics, acoustics and heat, and the second volume is electromagnetism and optics. As for the structure of the book, the author said: "The origin is to describe the causes and phenomena, the trunk is to list the physical laws and their interactions, and the branch is the application of various phenomena and the theory of explaining these phenomena is the destination." Its purpose is to "enable science and engineering students who have just entered the university to acquire exact knowledge about the meaning of physical concepts, the situation of important phenomena, the relationship between interaction and application". Each chapter describes the development process of the content in the form of "general introduction", so that students can have a preliminary understanding of its context, thus stimulating students' thirst for knowledge and facilitating a deeper understanding of scientific content. Most of the difficulties are stated in historical order, followed by theoretical derivation, especially the difficulties encountered in physics before. It is often solved by discussion, which makes it easy for students to grasp the key points and find the key points, thus inspiring thinking, questioning interpretation and re-creating. Not only impart physical knowledge, but also cultivate the ability to find and solve problems. These words not only illustrate the characteristics of writing this book, but also fully apply to the places that students must pay attention to when reading other textbooks, which is of universal significance. In a word, Mr. Sabendong's General Physics is not only easy to learn, but also easy to learn, so in the 1930s and 1940s, almost no one compiled and used other similar textbooks.

3. General Physics in Yan Jici

Yan Jici's "General Physics" was published in 1947 (see illustration 19 for the cover of "General Physics" edited by Yan Jici), more than ten years after Sabendong edited and published "General Physics". This book is divided into two volumes, the first volume is 26 chapters, the second volume is 33 chapters, and it has more than 800 pages. It is a magnificent masterpiece (see Appendix 7 for the catalogue). This book is more complete in theory and in-depth in discussion than similar textbooks. It introduces some modern ideas, such as "the essence of light", and discusses the concepts of "the duality of light" and "material wave", which are beyond the reach of other textbooks in the past. This book also began to pay attention to the connection between theory and production practice, with special chapters such as "heat engine", "motor" and "telecommunications". He also pointed out that when students study physics, they are often satisfied with memorizing formulas and calculating exercises. He pointed out: "There are many formulas in physics, so there is no need to memorize them. Remember a few formulas, and you may be able to answer exercises and cope with exams. Can't do exercises, naturally don't understand; But what you can do does not necessarily understand physics. " In the preface of this book "To Readers", he said: "Learning physics" is not "reading physics" but "doing physics". "An ideal book has only a tutorial function, not to mention that I should never read it casually." He also pointed out the purpose of studying physics. "Physics is the mother of experimental science, and its application has made considerable contributions to modern civilization directly or indirectly. We do physics, whether it is physics for the sake of physics. Or prepare for learning other academics, and strive to benefit people's livelihood and benefit mankind. " These words "to readers" are really meaningful for correcting students' learning attitude and still have guiding significance for today's students.

Third, experimental teaching.

After the Revolution of 1911, the foundation of physics experiment in the initial stage of China universities was very weak, which can be said to be "starting from scratch". After Guang, Hu, Ding, Rao Yutai and others returned to China early, Ye, Wu, Sabendong and others returned to China successively, presided over physics teaching in several schools, enriched teaching equipment, improved teaching content, and put physics experiments on the right track. During his teaching at Nanjing Normal University, Hu established the earliest physics laboratory in China. At that time, the physics department of Peking University was in China, but the physical experiments were also very simple, with only one laboratory as the instrument storage room. Under the auspices of light, Peking University's physical experiments have been greatly strengthened. In a few years, it has expanded to 5 general physics and professional physics laboratories, 3 optical laboratories, 1 electric vibration and applied electricity laboratory, 1 radiation physics and x-ray laboratory. There are 62 experiments to be done in junior middle school physics in the two years of preparatory course, 69 in general physics experiments for undergraduates and twice a week for specialized physics experiments. In this way, the physical experiment teaching in Peking University has been greatly improved, and the quality of theoretical teaching and experimental teaching has been continuously improved.

Although Nankai University was private in the early days, it had noticed the importance of scientific experiments when Zhang Boling was the president, so it started earlier than other universities. At that time, his aim of running a school was to "correct the current disadvantages and educate people to save the country." In order to achieve this goal, five principles of running schools and training are put forward, such as attaching importance to scientific observation and strengthening scientific experiments. By 1928, the general physical equipment of Nankai University was basically complete, and the experimental instruments needed for modern physics were also purchased with many latest products at that time. In terms of equipment, Nankai has surpassed Tsinghua and Peking University. When Rao Yutai was the head of the physics department, a large number of physics experiments were carried out in the university for four years. Grade one focuses on general physics experiments, grade two focuses on electrical measurement, grade three focuses on DC and AC electrical experiments, and grade four focuses on radio and research projects. When I arrived in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, many instruments were moved out because Nankai leaders attached importance to physical experiments. When Kunming, Peking University and Tsinghua jointly run a school, Nankai's physical instruments played a great role in teaching and scientific research.

In physics teaching, Sabendong also attaches importance to experiments. In his book General Physics, he put forward requirements for teachers' demonstration and experiment skills, so that teaching and experiment can go hand in hand. In his book General Physics Experiments, he listed 36 students' experiments, and each experiment was divided into several small experiments, which put forward requirements from the aspects of principles, steps and conclusions, and there were small questions for students to think about, so that students could not only complete the experiments, but also have a further understanding of the experiments and gain a deeper understanding and gain.

Yan Jici's General Physics also emphasizes experiments. In the preface to To Readers, he said: "Students should know that everything discussed in physics is true. They can see it, touch it, measure it, calculate it and use it. For all physical quantities, we should not only use a number and unit to express them, but also use an instrument or a method to measure them, so we should deeply understand them. " These words are aimed at students who don't pay attention to experiments in physics learning, which is the experience of physics teaching.

Fourth, the teaching of physics in missionary schools and institutions of higher learning.

Missionary schools are deformed products of education in China, and developed with the invasion of imperialist forces. However, due to the physical education in European and American universities, it has been decades or even hundreds of years before China universities started physical education, and they have quite rich experience in running schools, which can be used for reference. Missionary schools are the most convenient channel for us to introduce their experiences, and their teaching organization, curriculum, teaching materials and teaching methods can provide us with reference. For example, Duff's General Physics was first adopted by missionary schools and then extended to ordinary universities. In the 1920s, more than a dozen missionary universities were established in China, most of which were run by American churches. These missionary universities, modeled after the system of American universities, have physics departments and specialized physics laboratories, which have strict requirements for students' physical experiments. Due to the expansion of missionary schools, they all filed a lawsuit with the US government. For example, Soochow University in Suzhou filed a case with the Tennessee government of the United States, and Jinling University in Nanjing filed a case with the new york government. They belong to the same church system in this state and are connected with the relevant universities in this state. School leaders and some teachers come from affiliated schools; Courses, teaching materials and equipment, etc. , are formulated with reference to contact schools. Therefore, the graduates of missionary schools have basically reached the level close to affiliated schools. For example, St. John's University has been chartered by the Colombian state government to grant the same degree as American universities; West China United University signed a contract with new york University, and graduates can be awarded the degree of this university, which shows that it has reached the same level. Tu Youyou, a famous physicist in China, graduated from St. John's University and studied in the United States.

In a word, it is one thing for foreign churches to run missionary schools in China, and it is another to cultivate students' professional knowledge. As far as physics education is concerned, missionary schools have played a positive role in the development of modern physics teaching in China.

The above is a brief review of courses, textbooks, teachers and experiments. It can be known that in the 1920s and 1930s, compared with foreign countries, college physical education in China made a good start, which can be said to have begun to take shape.