4Q2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



superficially. This fact cannot be stated too emphatically and it should 

 be forced upon the attention of those in control of college affairs. 

 With the broadening in science teaching there has come a similar broad- 

 ening in other studies. Full of the self-sufficiency encouraged by the 

 older system of education, the college graduate who has reached middle 

 life does not recognize that the ordinary man and woman are intelligent, 

 well-informed and, in some respects, as well drilled intellectually as he. 

 The proof is at hand. The lightest of our monthly magazines finds a 

 demand for articles upon mining, sociology, electrical inventions, ap- 

 plied chemistry, bridge building, of a type which would have been about 

 as intelligible as Choctaw to the community forty years ago; news- 

 papers publish detailed descriptions of apparatus for wireless teleg- 

 raphy, discuss problems in psychology, the mechanics of flying machines 

 and pay generously for elaborate articles upon earthquakes and vol- 

 canoes; even the children talk glibly about ohms, volts and amperes as 

 they play with electric toys. The high school is, so to speak, ' abroad in 

 the land'; its bell tolls the knell for colleges which persist in the old 

 method of specializing to the last degree in subjects which concern 

 chiefly the intellectual side of man — an intellect regarded by most de- 

 fenders of that method as debased by sin — while compressing within 

 narrow limits those studies which concern the direct work of the Creator 

 himself. 



This advance adds to the burden of the science teacher. The 

 ' elements ' of a science in college often covers, or should cover, an area 

 almost as extensive as that of the whole science thirty-five years ago. 

 It has become difficult for science teachers to be investigators. The 

 hours devoted by others to relaxation are required by them for study; 

 their summer vacations are employed largely in the effort to catch up 

 with the progress in their branch or branches. It is remarkable that 

 so much work and so much good work is done by them in the way of 

 original research, largely, it is true, in hours which should be given to 

 rest. But, in too many instances, the opportunity for thorough work 

 is lacking even where there may be time. Instead of scores, there are 

 now hundreds of investigators in every branch of research, many be- 

 longing to government organizations, many employed by great corpora- 

 tions that their discoveries may be utilized, and some connected with 

 universities which do not overwork them; publications are scattered 

 through hundreds of journals and the literature on any subject has 

 become appalling, so that the task of consulting it is of itself almost 

 enough to deter any but a man of means and leisure from undertaking 

 systematic investigation. Libraries, museums and costly apparatus are 

 essential now, where, half a century ago, little was required aside from 

 will and mental ability. 



Especial emphasis has been laid upon the burden of the scientific 



