THOUGHT IN SCIENCE 167 



without understanding either their pedagogical purpose or their theo- 

 retical significance. One science teacher speaks of another as being 

 "well up" in science, because he knows the names of minerals or of 

 Bpiders that you and I never heard of ; or he knows all the stages in the 

 life-history of some very rare red sea-weed. Here science is con- 

 fused with erudition that happens to concern itself with objects of 

 nature rather than with words out of books ; but erudition is not science 

 in the one case any more than in the other. 



Another defect in much of our current science teaching lies in the 

 fact that the method of the experiment, which is supposed to be one of 

 the fundamentals in modem science, is often taught as a matter of 

 manipulation rather than as a matter of thought. Thus, in presenting 

 certain types of experiments, the negative instance or control is entirely 

 ignored. A chemical test is given, let us say, for the identification of 

 starch, or for determining its presence. The teacher shows that the 

 addition of iodine solution to starch produces a blue color; the applica- 

 tion is immediately made by placing some iodine on bread : the conclu- 

 sion forced out of the minds of the unsuspecting victims is that bread 

 contains starch ! I quote from an elementary biology by well-known 

 teachers : 



1. Put a small amount (size of pinehead) of corn starcli in a test tube, add 

 water, shake the mixture, and boil it over a gas flame. Pour into the starch 

 mixture thus formed a. few drops of iodine. What color is produced? 



2. Try the effect of iodine on each of the other food substances as follows: 

 Put a small amount of grape sugar into a test tube; into a second tube put some 

 white of egg (protein) ; into a third some fat or oil; into a fourth some mineral 

 matter (salt) ; and into a fifth some water. Add a little water to each and boil 

 as in 1 above to cook each nutrient. Add a drop or two of iodine solution to 

 each tube. 



Do any of the colors thus produced resemble at all the color resulting from 

 the addition of iodine to starch? 



3. From the preceding, state how you can determine whether or not a sub- 

 stance contains starch. 



Or we are to show that water is essential to the germination of seeds ; 

 and we are content to rest the case on the fact that seeds supplied with 

 water did under certain — but undefined — conditions actually germinate ; 

 or we may accept the conclusion on the fact that seeds without water 

 did not germinate — overlooking the equally obvious fact that certain 

 seeds without soap-powder or star-dust also failed to germinate. 



One biology teacher, after drilling the simple chemical tests for the 

 nutrients, proceeded to apply the acquired knowledge in true peda- 

 gogical fashion, by testing an *' unknown." The unknown proved to 

 contain both starch and proteins. The application came when the 

 teacher asked, " Well, then, is this substance fit to eat ? " An affirmative 

 answer was promptly forthcoming, and there ended that lesson. In an 



