968 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 



for the teacher, and the adoption of a 

 rational course of instruction in the sec- 

 ondary schools, which will take into ac- 

 count all of the pupils, rather than those 

 alone who propose to enter college, that we 

 may hope to attain better results. 



It is noticeable in the statements quoted 

 above regarding the present practise in the 

 various institutions, that the state colleges 

 are apparently giving a greater amount of 

 definite credit for work in the secondary 

 school than the others. This is frankly 

 stated by some of the college teachers to be 

 due to the closer organic connection of the 

 state university with the general school 

 system, and is admittedly done under slight 

 pressure. On the other hand, these insti- 

 tutions have, through the system of school 

 inspection on the part of the state universi- 

 ties, a more direct means of influencing 

 instruction in the preparatory schools. 

 The outlook for better conditions in the 

 future is generally regarded as favorable. 



Perhaps we may ask just here, What 

 would these better conditions be like? It 

 is probably fair to say that they would be 

 such as to avoid duplication of work. 

 Obviously repetition and duplication should 

 be reduced to a minimiun, and no one 

 would welcome changes which tend to 

 bring this about more than I. But I think 

 it is possibly true that there is less actual 

 duplication of work than is commonly sup- 

 posed in those institutions in which the 

 students who have had a year or more of 

 chemical instruction are segregated in sepa- 

 rate divisions. Let us take a concrete case 

 by way of illustration. The pupil in the 

 secondary school prepares chlorine, using 

 salt, sulphuric acid and manganese dioxide, 

 or hydrochloric acid and manganese di- 

 oxide. The time available rarely permits 

 the use of any other method, and the chem- 

 ical changes involved are sufficiently com- 

 plex to present some little difficulty for 



their complete comprehension. Few pu- 

 pils, as experience shows, really understand 

 that this is a typical, and not an isolated 

 or unique procedure, and the role played 

 by the manganese dioxide is but vaguely 

 grasped. It is true that such students are 

 asked to again prepare chlorine from these 

 materials in the college laboratory, but 

 they are at the same time required to study 

 the action upon hydi'ochloric acid of such 

 agents as lead dioxide, barium dioxide, 

 hydrogen dioxide, potassium permanganate 

 or potassium dichromate, and to discuss 

 the changes involved from the common 

 point of view of the oxidation of the acid, 

 and the proportion of actual duplication 

 of work is really small. Similarly, in the 

 study of the action of acids upon metals, 

 while it is desirable to ask the student for 

 the sake of completeness to repeat the 

 familiar process for the preparation of 

 hydrogen from zinc and sulphuric acid, 

 this becomes a mere incident in the series 

 of experiments and in the broader discus- 

 sion of all phenomena observed, which may 

 well go so far as to include the principles 

 of solution tension, in the case of such 

 students. 



It is, apparently, work of this general 

 character which many college teachers are 

 offering to those who have had earlier 

 chemical training. The laboratory work is, 

 as we have seen, frequently accompanied 

 by lecture demonstration and recitations of 

 a corresponding grade, and while it does 

 not, of course, appeal to the student as a 

 step in advance, as would some other pro- 

 cedure which seemed to give a stamp of 

 finality to his earlier studies, it may well 

 be questioned whether it does not better 

 foster his intellectual welfare than the 

 more alluring plan could do. It should, 

 however, be the purpose of the college 

 teacher to keep closely in touch with the 

 actual and probably increasing average 



