VOL.3, No. 6
CORFSSPONDENCE
719
training in English. Pupils facing examinations in chemistry and chemists facing the diiculty of presenting their work forcibly to the public are alike the victims of insufficient (and possibly inefficient) instruction in language. They simply do not have the language training that is needed in order to secure language abilities which can be applied to chemical content. The "ability to organize one's ideas" and put them intolanguageis not aspecific chemical ability, but is a language ability which can be applied to chemical material as to any other. The chemical instructor is, as you say editorially, reasonably pbligated "to acquaint the pupils with the terminology and the accepted usages of his science;" and to "frown on such illiterate crudities as are everywhere offensive." When he has done this, however, he has not come within reaching distance of teaching those abilities which examination questions require in many cases; and he would have to teach an entire course in rhetoric to accomplish any such result. Interested though I primarily am in science instruction, I have gradually come to the conviction that instruction in English, specific and definite, is so important that it should be given both great time and great weight in counting academic units of credit. Because of its importance, English should be given definite and separate credit. As the examinations of today stand, English is given an unknown but large proportion of credit under the name of attainment in all the other subjects, from chemistry to ancient history, from commercial law to biology. I am appealing for a real quantitative analysis of the attainment of the pupil. Finally, examinations and standardized tests alike have as yet not developed far beyond the stage of measuring or exhibiting chemical knowledge or information. Fully as important, even in the products of the beginning course, are the chemical points of view, the attitudes towards chemistry, and the specific ideals which chemical instruction may engender. Space does not permit of enlarging upon these here. I may, however, legitimately claim to have made, in my standardized tests in chemistry, the first attempt to take these aspects into consideration in a systematic way in measuring chemical achievement. It is my hope that the elimination of credit for English ability in measuring such attainment will, in tests made by future workers, go hand in hand with an attempt to include in the measured quantity these higher products of chemical instruction. STEPHENG . RICH N. J. VERONA,
CORRECTIONS T o rm
EDITOR:
I n an article on "Pandemic Chemistry" in the April issue of the JOURNAL
on CHEMICAL EDUCATION, Professor Bancroft says: "Yale University is
going to try a modified form of i t (pandemic chemistry) this autumn, although there i t is planned to be to some extent a substitute for the orthodox freshman chemistry." This statement is misleading and appears to be based on a misconception of the plans for the work here a t Yale. A new course, designed for election by students in the three upper classes of Yale University, is to be given next year. This course is not, however, designed to be a substitute for the courses in freshman chemistry and is not open to freshmen. The impression gained from Professor Bancroft's article is that a modified "pandemic chemistry" is to be substituted for the existing courses in general chemistry, and this is not the case. In our freshman courses we have cut, to what we believe to be the minimum, the amomt of specific descriptive material. We attempt to develop the important theories and principles of the subject on the basis of descriptive fads; and we make the study of the economic aspects of the suhject and the applications of the substances t o indnstry and to everyday life an integral part of the course. Since the applications of chemistry and the importance of chemistry are based on the properties and reactions of substances, our courses are being shaped on the principle that an adequate idea of these can be gained only when the student sees the reason for the various applications of substances. To do this requires a study of the substances which are being applied.
TO
THE EDITOR:
In connection with my article "Why Are Students Not More Interested I wish to inform you that in Chemistry?" in thelast issue of the JOURNAL,' the example given showing the method of teaching division of decimal fractions is not printed in accordance with my correction of the proof. My reason for calling attention to this is that the whole thing is practically meaningless unless it is written correctly. The point which the students are taught is that the first figure in the quotient must be put directly over the last figure in the dividend used by the multiplication of the divisor by the first figure in the quotiknt. Thus the example given should be as follows: 100.7 r-
. 0 7 6 ~ ]7.653/\2
'THISJOWAL,
3, 556-9 (1926).
