THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 10913. 
GERMAN SCHOOL CHEMISTRY. 
Methodik des chemischen Unterrichts. By Dr. 
Karl Scheid. Pp. xv+448. (Leipzig: Quelle 
und Meyer, 1913.) Price 20 marks. 
DUCATIONAL restlessness, so characteristic 
of the times in England, prevails to a 
scarcely less degree in the country to which we 
are so often directed to turn for pedagogic inspira- 
tion; and the agitation about methods of teaching 
‘science is not the least remarkable example of the 
contemporary stir in the educational world of 
Germany. 
The present volume is the fourth of a series 
constituting a handbook of scientific and mathe- 
matical instruction issued under the editorship of 
Dr. J. Norrenburg, and is written by a professor 
of the Realgymnasium mit Oberrealschule at 
Freiburg in Breisgau. ‘‘ Knapp und einfach in der 
Form,” it is declared to be by the editor; 
“Knapp” it may be by Teutonic standards, but it 
extends to about 450 large pages, and it ‘“‘grinds 
exceeding small,” as books on Methodik are apt 
to do in every language. However, the work is 
of much interest, and to a large degree readable. 
It refers to German boys’ schools, and the 
terminology of the German system, with its slight 
and subtle variations, presents some difficulty to 
the English reader. 
The first or general part of the book gives an 
account of the history of chemistry teaching in 
German schools, a description of its present 
condition, and of the various recommendations and 
‘criticisms that have been made by scientific, 
medical, or industrial authorities. The general 
educational principles involved in science teaching 
are discussed at considerable length with a great 
deal of division and sub-division. The second or 
special part of the book gives the outline of a 
4 suggested course of school chemistry. 
_ The chief impression produced by reading this 
~ account of German school science is the comfort- 
able one that we in England are well in advance 
of Germany in our attempts to make science 
_ worthy of its place in the school curriculum. It 
is somewhat remarkable that a German writer 
should have paid such little attention to what has 
been going on in other countries. There is a 
eulogistic reference to Faraday’s ‘Chemistry of a 
_ Candle,” but no allusion to the very great work 
that has been done in England during the last 
twenty-five years towards improving school 
_ science. 
The difficulties recounted by Dr. Scheid, the 
_ unsatisfactoriness of the traditional methods, and 
4 NO. 2297, VOL. 92] 
"1 
: 
\ 
| 
NATURE 
287 
the obstacles to reform, are very much the same 
as we have known here. There has been a strong 
academic prejudice against the intrusion of science 
into the school curriculum; the science that has 
been taught has been diluted university science 
administered dogmatically; sciences have been 
artificially severed; they have been detached from 
living nature and from human interests; they have 
resulted in a thing of shreds and patches that has 
been of no account for any terrestrial or celestial 
purpose. Against all this a rebellion has been 
fermenting ; the demonstration is condemned; the 
pupils are to work in laboratories; they are to 
be put into the position of discovering rather than 
of being told; things, in fact, are moving as they 
have moved here, but they have not moved so fast. 
There are many wise things said in the book, 
which, if they are not new, are the things that 
need to be said again and again. Dr. Scheid 
insists, for example, that the school teacher must 
remember that he has not got a collection of 
prospective chemists before him; that the method 
of teaching is more important than the range of 
matter; that every occasion must be taken to 
connect school teaching with the realities of life 
and industry; that the artificial tendency, not 
imposed by nature, between natural history and 
the exact sciences must disappear, if the realistic 
(i.e. modern) schools are to be true educational 
institutions in a thorough cultural sense. Only 
then will the Ober-realschulen and Realgymnasien 
be in a position to give a scientific education 
equivalent to the humanistic one. The distribu- 
tion of different branches of science to different 
teachers, the severance of physics from chemistry, 
are deprecated. Chemistry dissociated from 
physics, says the author, is resolved into a mosaic 
of details. Boyle, Dalton, and Davy were 
chemists and physicists in one person. 
The course of chemistry outlined by Dr. Scheid 
is not quite like those which have supplanted the 
old academic courses that prevailed in this coun- 
try. He begins with limestone, and makes it 
the object of some fundamental observations, 
partly quantitative, passing then to air and com- 
bustion. Sulphur and sulphuric acid lead to 
hydrogen, and then comes water. Flame, salt, 
and hydrochloric acid, quantitative experiments on 
the laws of combination, carbon and carbon 
dioxide, carbonates, nitrogen compounds, phos-. 
phorus, silicon, and the heavy metals—these com-- 
plete the topics of the lower course. The higher 
is more like the traditional systematic course. 
Proposals for the treatment of organic chemistry 
begin with alcohol, and include a restricted list of 
the substances and topics related more especially 
to everyday life. 
L 
