1 64 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THOUGHT m SCIENCE AND IN SCIENCE-TEACHING 

 bt db. benjamin c. gruenberg 



JUIilA RICHMOND HIGH SCHOOLS, NEW YORK 



FOE the sciences as taught in the secondary schools in all parts of 

 the country, there is generally claimed a "training" value in 

 addition to the informational value. In common with the teachers of 

 the so-called " humanities," many of the teachers of the natural sciences 

 claim for their subjects the power to develop in the student certain 

 intellectual and moral qualities. These highly desirable results are 

 reputed to flow from the " mental discipline " involved in the effort to 

 overcome difficulties, in the exact and orderly sequence of the intel- 

 lectual material, and in the method of the laboratory. 



Many psychologists deny outright the claim of any subject to have 

 a disciplinary value. This denial is based deductively on certain modern 

 generalizations as to the workings of the mind, or the break-down of the 

 "faculty" hypothesis; it is based inductively on the results of certain 

 experiments made in recent times, upon the effects of various learning 

 processes. It is the purpose of these notes to base the denial of the 

 general claim upon the results of observations on the mental processes 

 of certain persons who may be presumed to have acquired the full 

 benefits of whatever training the study of science is able to impart, 

 namely, teachers of science. In addition, I wish to point out the direc- 

 tion in which I think it is worth while to look for " educational " results, 

 as distinct from informational results. 



Do teachers of science in general exhibit those special virtues which 

 science learning is supposed to cultivate, in a degree above that shown 

 by the average citizen? Or by the teachers of other subjects? 



In the matter of observation, the teachers of science with whom 

 I have come in contact are not more comprehensive than the teachers of 

 history or of languages. The only criterion I have of this is "what 

 kinds of phenomena are noted?" The science teachers are not more 

 catholic in their interests or in their range of observations. On the 

 contrary, I have found many teachers of history and of language who 

 take an intelligent interest in the development of science, as well as in 

 the phenomena that fall within their own specialties ; but I know com- 

 paratively few teachers of science who take an intelligent interest in 

 matters foreign to their specialties. And their observations, as gaged 

 by their comments and conversation, are as restricted within their 

 respective fields as are their interests beyond. If we consider the 

 accuracy of the observations in their own fields, it remains an open 



