8 FOREWORD 



interest and success of the pupils was evident. However, 

 this course did not furnish a basis for preparation acceptable 

 to the colleges, and a long and acrimonious debate ensued. 

 As the high school came to be more and more conscious of 

 itself, schools here and there boldly insisted that they would 

 settle their own problems, and many prepared courses \\hich 

 were of vital interest and importance to the pupils. One 

 of the first books to lead the way in reconstructing the 

 subjects of physics and chemistry was General Science, by 

 Doctor Bertha M. Clark of the William Penn High School. 

 Doctor Clark began this book after an exhaustive question- 

 naire had been sent to graduates of the William Penn High 

 School, which proved that the traditional physics had been to 

 the pupils an object of no real value and of almost universal 

 dislike. The reformed general science, on the contrary, imme- 

 diately proved to be a very popular course in the school. 

 Pupils brought to the class their home problems for scientific 

 analysis. Heating, lighting, and ventilating the home, the 

 analysis of foods, the detection of adulterants, the composi- 

 tion of fabrics, the removal of stains, and a thousand practical, 

 everyday questions showed the improved relation of the reju- 

 venated science to life. 



General Science as a pioneer was a marked success. The 

 present volume is an extension of the general science idea to 

 cover a broader field. When the history of American educa- 

 tion of the first two decades of the twentieth century shall be 

 written, this movement to humanize science will prove one o/ 

 its interesting chapters, and the present volume and its pre- 

 cursor will undoubtedly appear as landmarks along the road 

 of real educational service. 



W. D. LEWIS, 

 Principal of William Penn High School. 



