1156
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
Jms. 1931
educational classes, which furnish an abundance of information on how to teach but comparatively little on the thing to be taught. The teacher must have a keen appreciation and understanding of the fundamentals of chemistry and of the generalities to be drawn from that understanding. To teach by this method, so much special training in a specific subject is required that few men who get that training ever go into high-school teaching, so little are their efforts appreciated. The educators seem more interested in the teaching of "attitudes" than in the teaching of facts, as if any thinking individual could form an attitude of his own without the employment of definite and well-established facts. A deep insight into the methods of science, the long hard hours of labor needed in research, an understanding of definite cause and effect relationships, and all the other factors that go to make up a successful course in science will teach the scientific attitude automatically without too great a conscious effort on the part of the instructors. One of the drawbacks to the "thought-provoking" method of teaching is that to an inspector, whether he be a superintendent, principal, or state inspector, the teacher appears a t a disadvantage because student response to questioning is not always as spontaneous as it might otherwise be, not so self-sure as in other classes, not so self-satisfying. Students who get A's and B's in classes taught by other methods are not as satisfied usually as they might be, and their parents, especially those who have power in the community, do what they can politically to make their offspring appear to be geniuses educationally. A teacher using the "thought-provoking" method does not have an easy time of it because the average parent is not nearly so interested in how much the boy or girl has increased his ability to think, but in how high a grade he or she has received. The use of the two teaching methods already discussed seems to divide all teachers into three classes: (1) those who employ the "inspectorpresent" method all the time (very safe) ; ( 2 ) those who really teach most of the time, but who fall back upon the "inspector-present'' method when they deem it advisable (very tactful); and ( 3 ) those who are so interested in the intellectual welfare of their pupils that they employ the "thoughtprovoking" method all of the time (very sincere but dangerous).
Citric Acid from Sugar. The production of alcohol from molasses is an old story, hut according to a recent article in Commerre RePorts citric acid is being- produced from cane sugar by fermentation. The process is being worked by the Tirlemont factory and Italian interests have lately acquired an 80 per cent interest in this plant. Rowntree and Co. under the Fernhach pxtent arc making citric acid in the United Kingdom. and in Germany a large plant is being erected by the Prager Montan und Industrialwerke for citric acid production from molasses.-News Ed., Ind. Eng. Chcm.
