648 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1458 



but I should like to enter a plea for the recogni- 

 tion of opportunity for reasonable treatment 

 of the gifted student commensurate with his 

 exceptional powers; and one of the conditions 

 for achievement is leisure and the privilege of 

 working at your own pace. 



To the now traditional practice of allowing 

 excess regisitration in proportion to quality of 

 credit should be added the proviso that an ex- 

 cess schedule must include an honor course 

 each year, and general health and social orien- 

 tation should be taken into account. If this 

 is done, the situdent may combine the saving 

 of time with the winning of distinction — ^a type 

 of distinction which has real value. A flexible 

 scale of excess registration may then safely 

 have such range that the very gifted student 

 could complete the college course in three years 

 if he so desired. 



Comradeship. The first and greatest need of 

 the gifted student is comradeship or fellow- 

 ship in the laite adolesoenit pursuit of his ideal 

 if it be the search for truth. Each of us who 

 has had any. degree of success in original work 

 can look back to little incidents where a teacher 

 or a more advanced fellow student conveyed the 

 serutiment; you are good enough to be in my 

 company; see with me this vision; share with 

 me ithis harvest; let us seek truth fii'st hand; 

 I want you to fall in love with my problem; 

 over the mountain top ther^ is light. This can 

 not be achieved through any fonnal academic 

 procedure. Probably less than one fourth of 

 the college iteachers in the United States are 

 capaible of participating in this privilege, and 

 yet the principle needs to be urged upon the 

 academic community in order that those who 

 have this interest at heart may not trust the 

 maehiinery to do what it ean not do; may not 

 underestimate the great significance of little 

 things in this direction, or may not in the in- 

 terest of modesty or academic eountesy hesi- 

 tate to exercise this privilege. It is a personal 

 affair and must therefore take the eouree of 

 natural, pereonal values, privileges, and i-e- 

 wards, given freely for the love of it, living 

 for it as' a father lives for his son. 



For this reason, formal academic privileges 

 and procedures can not be prescribed or even 



enumerated. Comradeship must be personal 

 and warm, involving privilege. But the out- 

 ward organizations must not be ignored. In- 

 vitation to the home; parlticipation in small 

 groups, clubs, and societies; the enjoyment of 

 special laboratory and library privileges; the 

 exemption from hampering formalities; the en- 

 couragement of rewards of all kinds; the stimu- 

 lation of compeltition ; the organization of 

 rigorous academic wrangling and criticism; the 

 participation in the reading of manuscripts,. 

 the conduct of experiments, scientific expedi- 

 tions, and learned societies. These things are 

 ■all of very great value to the student who has 

 been taken amto comradeship for research as a 

 neophyte. They come to him. because he has 

 beeii admitted to comradeship and in return he 

 gives his best. 



He needs counsel to curb his enthusiasms, to 

 acquire fundamental habits and knowledge, to 

 lay good foundations through training in the 

 fundamentals, to fit himself into the social body 

 in which he lives, to care for his health and 

 manners, to seek reasonable outlet for his in- 

 genuity, to keep from being a hermit or a prig, 

 to keep in the humble attitude of a master who 

 is not puffed up over his achievement. 



C. E. Seashore 

 State University of Iowa 



WHAT SHALL BE TAUGHT IN THE 



FIRST YEAR OF COLLEGE 



CHEMISTRY?! 



There is much uneeiitainty among college 

 chemists as to the proper treatment of fresh- 

 men, some of whom had chemistry in high 

 school, while some did not. With a class not 

 exceeding one hundred and a somewhat limited 

 teaching staff, there is no better method than to 

 put them all in the same class with the same 

 text. No apology need be offered for such a 

 procedure. In such small classes the teacher 

 can keep in close touch with the individual 

 Situdent and vary tke program 'to suit individual 

 possibilities. This is especially easy in the 

 laboratory drill where the experiments may be 



1 Paper presented at the Pittsburgh meeting of 

 the American Chemical Society. 



