VOL.7, NO. 8
WHY TEACH CHEMISTRY?
1877
lines such as industry, agriculture, health and disease, enrichment of life, warfare, and in the modern home, (h) influence of heredity on future generations, and (i) the supplying of better qualified teachers to continue and develop the teaching of chemistry. Imagination is a human asset and it is generally admitted that science study stimulates the imagination. A brief review of the subjects appearing in popular scientific journals shows the use of the imagination in a very large number of fields, with opportunities for its increasing use as the field of activities expands. The imagination of Jules Verne as to submarine activities is an example of a vivid imagination reasonably controlled by previous science study. Science study in general and chemistry study in particular, when taught in a way which approaches its possibilities, can be regarded as furnishing training in observation, knowledge making, imagination, judgment, and in self-elimination. The dogmas of Aristotle regarding matter will not be regarded highly by the modern boy or girl who has worked diligently and completed a course in general chemistry. The teaching of chemistry to the average class of young people is a large-sized task. This is admitted by all chemistry teachers who conscientiously examine enough of their pupils' note-writing to know what it is like, and who have some regard for order and technic. Yet the writer doubts the value of student notes very much, when inspecting a large number of secondary-school chemistry notebooks and not findmg a single mark made by instructors in a large number of schools. Notebook grading appears to be a rare sort of teaching activity. It is a fact that many teachers feel that receiving credit for but one hour's teaching for two hours' laboratory work is a severe penalty for their having entered the profession. Naturally, they will not increase such a penalty by examining or grading (not correcting) laboratory notes unless forced to. Then, with the additional duties of laboratory maintenance, care of many supplies, maintaining and arranging equipment, etc., I feel that, relatively, we teachers as a group, are doing a better piece of educational work than we receive credit for. We should, therefore, he doing the teaching of chemistry the greatest good, if we obtain universal credit for teaching on a clock-hour basis. Despite the admitted trivial natnre of much chemistry instruction, the writer feels that the student who applies h~mself and utilizes the opportunities available in an average secondary school or college chemistry course will obtain those benefits which the study of chemistry can confer.
Amount of 1930 Nobel Prizes. The 1930 Nobel Prizes will each amount to f9608, according to a report drawn up by the auditors of the Foundation.-Chem. Age
