Decembeb 17, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



879 



If an able essay is written in the state of Cali- 

 fornia showing that morality is a social obli- 

 gation, there should be some means of bring- 

 ing that idea to the notice of all the people. 

 How could these things be done? For answer 

 we may ask, how does the Department of 

 Agriculture utilize the ideas of scientific men? 

 If we establish experiment stations to discover 

 means of conserving our material resources, 

 why should we not establish experimental 

 schools to test the usefulness of ideas directed 

 toward the problem of social betterment? 



Experimental schools under the supervision 

 of a Department of Education would certainly 

 be more productive of good from the very first 

 than the occasional model school here and 

 there through the country, for at least these 

 three reasons : because the literature of all 

 previous experiments in all countries would be 

 at their immediate command, because the ideas 

 of a nation's teachers would flow to it nat- 

 urally, and because the successes and, equally 

 important, the failures could always be mat- 

 ters of public knowledge. 



We need better and more productive meth- 

 ods of school administration than those com- 

 monly employed. To this end national ex- 

 perimental schools could " try out " the various 

 ideas along democratic lines that have come in 

 our effort to free ourselves from the autocratic 

 domination of one or a few strong or unprin- 

 cipled men in control of systems of schools. 

 Moreover, the classical, the scientific and the 

 " practical " subjects must be analyzed as to 

 the character of subject-matter, and experi- 

 mented with for results. We have the dictum 

 of the middle ages that the classical languages 

 bring culture to the mind of the learner. Are 

 there not other subjects which may yield the 

 product of culture? Again, teachers of the 

 natural sciences have long claimed a monopoly 

 of material which on being studied trains stu- 

 dents to think. We who are in the work must 

 soon acknowledge that we have not proved our 

 case. The explanation of failure may lie in 

 the possibility of our not knowing how to 

 handle our material. There can be no ques- 

 tion that the natural sciences do present the 

 opportunity for training to thinking. Na- 



tional experimental schools could take up the 

 discoveries in methods made by isolated teach- 

 ers of science, and make them productive of 

 good to great numbers of the younger genera- 

 tion of citizens. The help to a nation of gen- 

 erally non-thinking people might be enormous. 



National experimental schools covering all 

 the work from kindergarten to college should 

 be established in various parts of the country, 

 for the benefit of the local schools and to the 

 profit of the national schools themselves. For 

 administrative as well as for pedagogical and 

 social reasons, these schools should offer, for 

 example in the secondary grade, all the sub- 

 jects now taught in the classical or special 

 high schools. Only through the organization 

 of this, a cosmopolitan high school, could com- 

 parative results be obtained. 



In this connection we should not fail to 

 consider the expense of possibly a score of 

 national schools. For that we could draw on 

 the credit of the future to the extent of the 

 cost of a few " dreadnoughts." 



Henry R. Ldcville 



Jamaica, N. Y. 



the ass0ciati0>f of amebicak chemical 

 research laboratories 



To THE Editor of Science : Permit me. Sir, 

 to correct an error in my letter printed in 

 Science, issue of November 5, 1909. Among 

 the laboratories which had, at the Clark Uni- 

 versity celebration meeting on September 16, 

 joined the newly formed Association of 

 American Chemical Eesearch Laboratories, 

 my letter mentioned that of Harvard Uni- 

 versity. This is due to a misunderstanding. 

 Professor Richards, the chairman of the de- 

 partment, while " believing most heartily in 

 the spirit and idea " of the association, had 

 not explicitly pledged the Harvard laboratory 

 to join it, and now the director of the labora- 

 tory. Professor Sanger, who has charge of all 

 business matters, has definitely decided 

 against adding the laboratory to the associa- 

 tion list, in the belief that this would be con- 

 trary to " the terms under which our chem- 

 icals and apparatus are imported duty free." 



I have thought it scarcely necessary to point 

 out that the borrowing of supplies by educa- 



