methods of testing results now available to us, but let us not fail to be governed by our common sense. As the irate mother, whose boy had been beaten by the teacher, wrote, "Don't lick him! Larn him!" so I s a y , "Don't test him! Teach him!"
FLAME TESTS JOSEPHI. OSER, SIMON GRATZ HIGH SCHOOL, E~ILADELPHUL, PENNSYLVANIA I n showing the characteristic colors imparted t o flames by salts of various metals, it is time-wasting and annoying t o have t o clean carefully the platinum wire before each test. One will save time and get more satisfactory results by making a set of bottles each containing a solution of the pure salt t o be tested. Replace the ordinary glass stopper of each bottle with a singly perforated rubber stopper. Through the perforation passes a glass tube or rod, in one end of which is sealed a platinum wire. Thus each platinum wire is used with but one solution and does not become contaminated. Small reagent bottles (two-inch diameter) may be used and placed in holes drilled one inch deep in a block of wood two inches thick. Thus all the solutions needed are conveniently kept together. Por high-school work I find it satisfactory to show six flame t e s t s w i t h the chlorides of sodium, potassium, lithium, calcium, strontium, and barium. "Poor Risk" Students Take Course in How to Get through College. Hope for students who are anxious t o go through college even though they are labeled by intelligence tests and high-school grades as "poor college risks" is held out as a result of an experiment in intensive training conducted by Dr. Edward S. Jones, professor of psychology a t the University of Buffalo. Dr. Jones took thirty-two high-school graduates who ranked with the lowest twofifths of their high-school class and gave them almost a month's course t o fit them t o compete with other college students. They were taught . how t o take notes from lectures. They were drilled in rapid reading, and tested to see how much of the material read they understood and remembered. They practiced writiux compositions and doing mathematical problems and they heard lectures on habits, attentiveness, mental hygiene, memorizing, and choosing a vacation. Students who went into training for freshman work made distinctly better records during the first two semesters than the same type of students who did not have the prelinlinary training, Dr. Jones states, in reporting his experiment in the Journal o j Personnel Research. At Thanksgiving time only eight of the thirty-two were warned of failure in two subjects, and a t the end of the second semestcr the marks of the group averaged higher than in the first semester. This is considered particularly encouraging, since Dr. Jones states that "with other students there has been found no significant difference in average marks from one spmester to the next." All but one of the students who had the pre-collcge coaching course improved in ratings on intelligence tests, Dr. Jones reports. This is attributed largely t o their intensive practice in rapid reading, in understanding directions, focusing attention, and in setting about work in an orderly manner.-Science Service
