334 



SCIENCE. 



[K. S. VOL.XVIII. No. 454. 



try does not amount to much. The stu- 

 dent does not get enough of it to amount 

 to a row of pins. Now, on the other hand, 

 the university professor begins at the be- 

 ginning. He can not skip oxygen or 

 hydrogen or nitrogen or water or the at- 

 mosphere because the students have heard 

 these names once or twice in school," etc. 



Such a scathing anathema, besides degi-ad- 

 ing the high school teacher 's work, and ele- 

 vating to the pedestal the university pro- 

 fessor's, shows ignorance of high school 

 chemistry as taught to-day. Hundreds of 

 these schools have as teachers graduates in 

 chemistry from colleges and technological 

 schools, and scores have degree men from 

 German and American universities who are 

 'real chemists,' and whose work compares 

 favorably with that done in college. 

 Again, it is the exception that high schools 

 now building and recently built are not 

 well equipped with laboratories. Within 

 ten miles of this spot there is a high school 

 chemical laboratory on which there was 

 laid out for repairs alone last year more 

 than $10,000, and another high school plant 

 in the same city whose original cost more 

 than thirty years ago was $40,000. Two 

 weeks ago, happening to be in a city of 

 only 25,000 people, in another state, I 

 visited a high school laboratory better 

 equipped than any college laboratory doing 

 the same grade of work that it has been my 

 fortune to examine. 



This statement might have been true 

 twenty-five years ago; it is probably true 

 now of some remote country high schools. 

 Its iteration by only one out of twenty- 

 three shows that most colleges recognize the 

 improved conditions in high school work. 



Yet from these replies of representative 

 higher institutions there seems no doubt 

 that preparatoi'y schools are trying to do 

 too much and are really doing too little. 

 Where is the fault, and what is the remedy ? 



A majority of the replies state distinctly 

 that the deficiency is in laws and general 

 principles; that students can not suffi- 

 ciently correlate facts and theories. The 

 teaching of laws, general principles and 

 chemical theorj^ assumes, therefore, para- 

 mount importance and constitutes the great 

 desideratum. Elsewhere I have dwelt upon 

 the importance of theory teaching, and the 

 verdict of these colleges is a convincing 

 corroboration. 



While the inculcation of principles and 

 laws is acknowledged by every instructor 

 to be the most difficult part of his work, 

 something to be avoided by the easy-going 

 teacher and slothful student, yet it is recog- 

 nized as the only thing that can give a 

 broad grasp of the subject and, Avith req- 

 uisite experiments, yield the largest re- 

 sults. The tendency in some quarters to 

 omit the application of these broad prin- 

 ciples, to abolish the text-book, to abuse the 

 laboratory by excessive use to the exclusion 

 of recitation and lecture, should be viewed 

 with only temporary alarm, for such ab- 

 normalities will finally right themselves 

 when the ideal course is adopted. 



Entering college on chemistry is a com- 

 paratively recent thing. The colleges are 

 the pacemakers, and the high schools are 

 trying their best to keep up. 



In the elective system that subject must 

 take the place of so much mathematics, or 

 some ancient or modern language. To be 

 the equivalent of any one of these, a great 

 deal of ground must be covered— the non- 

 metals and the chief metals, laws and gen- 

 eral principles, the chemical theory in^ 

 eluding nomenclature, symbolization, etej 

 The fitting schools have tried to cover all 

 this extensive ground, and, as most of 

 these schools give but one year of three to 

 five hours per week to chemistry, the result 

 has been— to borrow Mr. Morgan's phrase 

 of 'undigested securities'— a vast amount 



