How to Become a Scientist — High School Years 85 



importantly, with what is available. If good courses are 

 provided in physics, chemistry, and biology, one is tempted 

 to recommend that the future scientist take all three. In- 

 deed, it would be a very good idea if all future citizens 

 would take all three. We are hving at a time in which 

 science bears importantly on every aspect of our Uves. Just 

 as Latin and Greek and mathematics were the keys to 

 knowledge when the classical educational pattern was laid 

 down in the Renaissance, the natural sciences are the most 

 important keys to knowledge today. It may still sound a 

 bit prejudiced to say so, but it is nevertheless true, that 

 no man or woman is really educated for Hfe in the twentieth 

 century unless he understands the basic propositions of 

 science. We will have more to say about this later. At this 

 point I only wish to emphasize the importance of getting 

 a good introduction to science at the secondary school level 

 no matter what one is going to do in later life. 



There is a good deal of confusion about the order in 

 which the sciences should be taken. A decade or more ago 

 it perhaps made Httle difference. Each of the three basic 

 sciences could be regarded as more or less a self-contained 

 unit to be studied with Httle reference to the other two. 

 As set forth in an earHer chapter, however, the sciences 

 are now merging i^pidly into one another. The basic prin- 

 ciples of chemistry are increasingly finding their explanation 

 in the physical structure of the atom. Similarly, the basic 

 principles of biology are now understood in terms of chemi- 

 cal reactions. These facts have led to some experimentation 

 with courses that present physics and chemistry or chem- 

 istry and biology in an integrated way. If such courses are 

 available, by all means take them. If not, the recommended 

 order should in my strong opinion be physics, chemistry, 

 and biology. Physics is often regarded as the hardest, a fact 

 that leads many people to recommend that it be postponed. 



