NORRIS W. RAKESTRAW Scripps Institution, La Jolla, California
EDITOR'SNOTE: The remarks on these pages are those deas the Soientifie Apparatus livered by NOREISW. RAKESTRAW Makers' Award address before the Division of Chemical Education a t the 132nd Meeting of the Americm Chemical Sooiety, New York, September, 1957. We know that readers share our gratification in being able to open these pages to the man who for fifteen yeam prior to 1955. Its place guided THIS JOURNAL in the world's scientific literature is a monument to Dr. Rakestraw and his conviction that chemical education only hegins in the classroom.
S o FAR as I am aware, "chemical education" was a term unheard of prior to 1921, when the Section of Chemical Education of the American Chemical Society was organized, largely through the efforts of the late Neil E. Gordon. One can read Dr. Gordon's own account of this event, which was prompted by a paper which Dr. Harry N. Holmes happened to give a t the New York meeting of the Society shortly before. The purpose of the Section was to provide a means for teachers of chemistry to meet together and discuss their teaching problems. Scarcely was this accomplished than the next step was taken, the founding of the JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION (in 1923), which was to afford an opportunity to publish such discussions. I n 1924 the Section attained the dignity of a Division of the Society. These events have already been recorded in detail.' Thus within a very few years chemical education was in business as an organized activity. Its progress in this country, and its reflections in similar activity in other countries, were largely influenced by the prestige of the American Chemical Society, and, with time, by that of the JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION. Chemistry was the first scientific field really to organize its educational implications in this way, and its accomplishments in this direction have subsequently influenced other fields, such as physics, biology, geology, and even engineering. The words themselves may have been an unfortunate choice. How can education be "chemical"? Certainly the adjective has a different relation here than i t has in such terms as "chemical constitution," "chemical structure," or "chemical analysis." How about the analogous terms used in other fields? "Engineering education" is rhetorically purer; "biological education" and "geological education" are just as bad; "physical education" is impossible, for it has been preempted by an entirely different activity. On the other hand, the second word in the term is not without disadvantages. Those of us who have been close to the problems of the JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION have sometimes wished that it had been 1 GORDON, NEIL E., J. CHEM.EDUC.,20, 369 (1943); FALL. EDTTC., 21, 463 (1944). PAULH., J. CHEM.
given a different name. For, illogical as it may be, the word "education" has derogatory implications to some professional people. However, the meaning of a word is finally determined by usage rather than by primary definition, and usage can change. So how is this term really used? The motive behind the Section and the Division of Chemical Education was to provide a forum for teachers to talk shop, and for the first several years the talk was about everyday classroom and teaching problems, about such things as the order of topics to be taught, the size of laboratory sections, and the relation between high school and college chemistry. A committee established to consider the last of these questions was for years one of the most important and active committees of the Division. CHEMICAL EDUCATION ONLY STARTS IN THE CLASSROOM
At one time it was the intent of the secretary of the Division to assemble and maintain a current, up-todate file of all the teachers of chemistry in the country. Useful as this might have been, the project proved impractical. Nevertheless, while we may accept the view that the formal relation between student and teacher of chemistry, with all the conventional accessories and paraphernalia which pertain to it, constitutes the beginning of chemical education, i t is however not the end of it. There are a t least three considerations which lead to this conclusion. First, it is a common complaint that teachers are themselves taught only how to teach and not what. Quite aside from the question whether or not this complaint is true, i t nevertheless reveals a perfectly proper interest that the educational process should be as much concerned with the content of subject matter as with the methods of teaching. If this is true, the survey of subject matter and its preparation in suitable form for presentation is a vit,al part of chemical education. There are some who believe that only he who is an active and competent research worker is fully qualified to teach. While this may be too extreme a view of the relation between teaching and research, we must admit that it is impossible to separate these two activities completely. If research ability, or a t least research interest, is an important qualification for good teaching, to that extent is chemical education interested in research as such. If teaching is to prepare for a profession (undoubtedly one of the first functions of chemical education) it must be closely involved in all the activities of the profession, with the establishment of its standards of acJOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
complishment, its code of ethics, its qualifications for admission. Chemical education is thus concerned with all aspects of the chemical profession. I n the broad sense, chemical education bears the same relationship to the professional field of chemistry that general education does t o the economic, social, and personal lives of all of us in the world. It is generally conceded that education is a process by which the individual becomes equipped and fitted to participate in the world's affairs. It therefore involves his preparation not only to make his living but also to take his place as an intelligent unit in society. When conceived in these terms education is a process which is never completed throughout the life of the individual. It is therefore not limited to his formal experience in school or college. Most people are properly proud that they continue to learn throughout their lives, and i t would be sad to suppose that a person should not become better and better educated as he lives longer and longer. Plenty of other agencies than the schools are educative. Books, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, and many other organized activities have their educational aspects. Schools and colleges are the formal expressions of all this activity, hut education in the large sense can go on without them, as we know from the common reference to the "self-educated man." We can apply this same reasoning to chemical education. It is a purely arbitrary limitation, but not a logical one, to restrict i t to the confines of the formal classroom. On the contrary, it includes all aspects of the process by which the chemist becomes fitted and equipped to take his place in the chemical profession, and also includes the application of chemistry in the general educational curriculum and the means by which a knowledge of chemistry is disseminated a t large. This makes it difficult,and perhaps unimportant, to draw any clear line between chemical education and chemical news, for example. I n fact, in a broad sense chemical education would include the whole field of chemical publication, since the prime purpose of the latter is really educative. It may he noted that the Division of Chemical Literature is an outgrowth of activity within the Division of Chemical Education, which mothered it and is proud to acknowledge it as one of the educational family. Indeed, the statement of specifications for the Scientific Apparatus Makers Award in Chemical Education is so worded as to recognize a number of related educational accomplishments other than formal teaching. But broad as we may think the conception or significance of chemical education to he, we must be realistic as an agency or organization. It should not be our purpose or desire t o stake out an impossibly wide claim for the activity of the Division of Chemical Education, or even to try to expand it into an unwieldy empire. It should be recognized that the principal function of the divisions of the Society is to arrange and conduct programs a t meetings. To be sure, many divisions have gone beyond this, with effectiveness and good purpose, and probably no division more than our own. It is now recognized that many of the activities of the Society involve chemical education, and committees VOLUME 35, NO.
1,
JANUARY, 1958
have been established within the Society, the Council, and the Board of Directors to deal with educational problems, one of the most important of which is the Committee on Professional Training. So, within the Society, chemical education has become too big an activity for the Division which bears that name. Should this cause us concern? Why? If the meaning and significance of chemical education is as broad as I have suggested, no single agency could possibly deal with it. NEW CHALLENGES TO CHEMICAL EDUCATION
What are some of the considerations which face us in this field today which were either unknown or unimportant thirty-five years ago? The first that comes to mind is that of professional training. This has certainly been one of the most important problems in the last few years, and in its very nature will be a perpetual one. Nevertheless, through the excellent work of the Society's Committee on Professional Training we may consider it well in hand. The discovery of a critical shortage of scientific and technical manpower has uncovered several problems needing quick and close attention. The public has been alerted to the dangers implied and seems to be responding amazingly well, under the circumstances. Strangely enough, the response to this situation now, during peacetime, seems to be much more vigorous than it was t o the same situation during war. The problem which concerns us most vitally is the relation of this shortage to an evident ineffectiveness of science education in the schools, particularly in the secondary schools. We have long recognized many of the difficulties of chemical education in the secondary school, but because of the nature of our organization, have been slow to do anyth'mg about them. Now, however, the Society has awakened to the fact that the high school teacher is perhaps the most important factor in determining our future supply of trained scientific talent. If our efforts are to be helpful, however, we must realize that this is not merely a question of chemical education, but of science education in general. We must forget any vested interest of chemistry in the high school and help to promote all science, as well as mathematics. If the position of science is strengthened in the secondary school, chemistry will come in for its fair share, and this does not necessarily mean abolishing chemistry as a curricular subject. We are in competition with forces which would turn young people away from science and technology for mistaken reasons. Counselors are themselves poorly informed or even wrongly motivated. We must make i t clear that science is not leading the world t o ruin; that it is not too difficult for a young man or woman to hope to comprehend; that i t is not a poorly paid profession; that scientists are not all egg-heads and " squares." There is plenty which can he put on the positive side of the ledger, and we must see that this is clearly shown and understood. Even in the larger sense, we must impress young people with the fact that knowledge in a n y field, scientific or otherwise, is something worth striving for. There is too great a temptation for young people--at least in this country-to believe that the world is
getting along prosperously enough and that there are no good reasons for any particular exertion. We know very well, on the other hand, that our great need is not merely for more scientists and engineers, but for more exceptional, top-notch men in these fields-indeed in all fields of endeavor. Superior intelligence, superior accomplishment, must be sought and striven for. There is no need, on this occasion, to recount the many attractions which science holds out to young people who a t this wonderful time in the world's history are contemplating a life career. While we might like to emphasize the attractions of chemistry, i t is for the moment more important to point to the fraternity of all science. How far we have come, even in our lifetimes! Not only in technological developments, but more impressively in our understanding of the world's phenomena. How differently the structure of matter appears now than it did when you and I first studied chemistry! How much more confident we can be that other mysteries, which we now only glimpse, will some day be laid bare.
NATURE HAS NO "CLASSIFIED" SECRETS We are now daring to ask questions and think of possibilities which we dared not think of and ask a few years ago. Now that we have learned to release the energy deep within atoms which we cannot see but only imagine, we are coming to believe that there are no "classified" secrets of nature. They are all open to him who can uncover them. It is not long since thunder and lightning, storms and drought, the movements of the sun, moon and stars, the visitations of sickness and disease, were all mysteries enshrouded with religious superstition, not to be questioned but only regarded with wonder and awe. Now we really know something about them, and can even control some of them. And this conquest has taken place within a relatively short time, as the age of our world is reckoned. The very beginning of science and our real knowledge of the world was only a few thousand years ago, while man's inhabitation of the earth is probably a hundred times longer. But the gradient of the learning curve has really become significant only within the last few hundred years. Does anyone imagine that this curve will flatten? The acceleration is much more likely t o continue. And to what limit-if any? What questions will we be asking of nature a hundred years from now-or a thousand-or five thousand? Without a doubt, some of the questions which now we can imagine no way of even attacking will then be matters of common knowledge rather than conjecture. We are already seriously asking how the earth came into being, even the whole universe itself. Of course. people have always been interested in this, but me are
beyond the stage of vaguely imagining or apologetically suggesting. Cosmogonists are a reputable group of scientists. We feel we have more than merely hypothetical ideas of how the chemical elements came into being and evolved one from the other. Scientific discussions of the origin of life are lifting the subject out of the realm of symbolism and may soon be as commonplace as the annual Gordon Conferences. In the realm of practical projects, interplanetary travel is a seriously contemplated objective, and people now living are hoping to set foot on the moon. A prominent chemist friend of mine, to whom I suggested that questions like these would before long be the subjects of serious research, was unreceptiveeven somewhat derisive, saying that this was extrapolating our known data too far. I cannot agree with this view; I am afraid it is the reactionism of age. "Lead Kindly Light" is a splendid hymn but its intellectual implications are unacceptable. What scientist can say, "I do not ask to see?" I cannot believe that man was intended thus to surrender to frustration. On the contrary, he will best fulfil his destiny by striving to know. Man's world will always be a challenge t o his intellect, and he will never rest as long as there is an unanswered question in his mind. He will always be pushed on by the urge to glimpse "the principle which gives life (that) dwells within us and without us, is undying and eternally beneficient, is neither seen, nor heard, nor felt, but is perceived by the man who desires perception." I have tried to present some of the challenges t o science education, of which chemical education is a part. For after all science education cannot be separated from the advance of science itself. If these are not challenges today, they will be tomorrow, or further in the future. And here too, let us not keep our eyes only upon the one step ahead but rather in the far distance. For in that way we shall get the inspiration which comes from contemplating the Great Unknown. I once wrote? I n other words, we want to know-and still not be discouraged when it d a m s upon us that we never really h o w . Two "whys" will always rise to take the place of every one we learn t o answer. I n such a race we never catch up with ourselves, keep wandering into broader fields, always striving hard to see what lies beyond the next horizon. And an and on, no stop in such a quest; the far horizon still eludes us-always will. But the wider and the longer is the path we tread down in the search, the richer d l our life becomes. And still we are content t o reach no final end. Something deep within us drives us on. M a n would be less than man without it.
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
