of
CHEMISTRY TEACAERS
Science Education and the Contemporary World' R. W . GERARD Professor of Physiology, University of Chicago
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COME tonight to scold and augur ill, Xantippi and Cassandra rolled intoone. The world, indeed,is outof joint, and Science, among other human institutions, must stand before the bar of judgment. For this is the age of science. Reason, disciplined in scientific procedure, has made possible our modern society-its complex stridor and its far-flung interdependencies. Reason and science are being tested, today, along with the world they have helped to fashion. Let me state the case as I see it.
animal is more aware of the continuous environmental rain of stimuli upon it; more nerve messages are brought to the brain to be coordinated; a more elaborate brain evolves; finer and more discriminative behavior becomes possible; in short, a more complex organism comes into being. Evolution of the society likewise depends on environmental stimuli. The frontiers of a social group were once geographical. Beyond the confines of the epiorganism lay a material environment from which stimuli reached it. Other lands, peoples, cultures, acted upon hunters, SCIENCE AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION sailors, traders, and like sensory units, which carried Society, as a whole and in its larger subordinate the new formative experiences back to the main social groups, is an organism or, better, an epiorganism, com- body. But geographical limits have been overwhelmed, posed of men as its ultimate units just as a man is an as evolving transport and communication shrink the organism composed of cells as units. I assure you world. All men are now one loose epiorganism, the that, as a professional biologist, I do not mean this surface of our sphere has no unknown lacunae, provinstatement as a facile analogy but as one which is cial cultures are melting into uniformities, and the biologically meaningful. The society, like the or- primitive spacial frontiers are gone. ganism or the cell, exhibits all the basic attributes of a The frontiers of today, and even more of tomorrow, unit living system, is integrated by the same types of are those of the mind or, better, of mind applied to the mechanisms, and develops along like paths. This seemingly familiar world. New insight into old matter has been considered elsewhere in detaila and phenomena brings about new tools and technics of must here be assumed. Only one critical inference exploration which reveal new phenomena. The microneed be drawn now. scope and spectroscope and telescope and oscilloscope The evolution of organisms is directed and fostered are the extensions of vision which bring molecules and by their environment. As generations follow one an- nuclei or galactic nebulae before the collective mind of other special sense organs appear and grow more sen- society. The new stimuli which direct social evolution sitive, each able to receive one kind of stimulus. Light rain in from the unknown while the frontier of the waves, sound waves, material objects are richly present known encroaches into it. The sense organs of the in the environment; but electric currents and mag- epiorganism are the scientists, those specialized units netic fields are present only slightly or as constants which become ever more sensitive to ever more stimuli and are not related to happenings of moment to ani- and which barrage the social body ever more insistently mals. Animals have evolved ever more elegant eyes with the excitations set up by these stimuli. This isinand ears and touch receptors, but no sense organs for deed the age of science-that stage in epiorganism evolumagnetism. With the improvement of receptors, an tion in which new receptors appear, the scientists; and, ' A lecture delivered before the New England Association of having themselves been evolved by the epiorganism, Chemistry Teachers, at the Fourth Summer Conference, Univer- they now hustle and worry the whole onward a t an sity of New Hampshire, Durham, N. H., August 12, 1942. accelerated rate of change. Receptors in general are '"Organism, society, and science," S c i a t i f i Monthly, 50, 340-50, 403-12, 530-5 (1940). "Higher levels of integration," a sort of autocatalyst of evolution; scientists are autocatalysts of social evolution. Biological Symposia. 8, 67-87 (1942).
"Science is tested and organized knowledge, gleaned and tried with the aid of its powerful method. It is not necessary . . to reiterate the character of this process . observation, explanation, experimentation, and rejection or, occasionally, confirmation. The elimination of chance by repetition, of extraneous factors by controls, and of faulty conclusions by tests of their predictions are commonplaces. . . . This habit of mind and action is indigenous in but not confined to the laboratory. I t is the flowing river that deposits a rich alluvial delta of new-made wisdom. It is the greatest invention of man, the method of inventi~n."~ But all is definitely not well. Invention autocatalyzing invention, change speeding change, may accelerate to an explosive rate if once out of control. Surely when the neural mechanisms of an animal are inadequate to handle the sensory stream-because of faulty development, as in the feeble minded; or because of damage, as in strychnine poisoning; or because of excessive stimulation, as in the neuroses of overstrain or insoluble conflictsthen a breakdown results. Animals forced into experimental neuroses show a severe and general disintegration of their previously integrated behavior habits. Perhaps change has overpowered the social intelligence, so that the insufficiently evolved epiorganism brain can no longer integrate the new experiences. Perhaps society is becoming complex too rapidly and is experiencing the disintegration of a neurosis. I doubt that things are a t such a pass psychobiologically, but even if they are and even if scientific advance is a large part of the cause, the popular reaction is in error. For the lay world is beginning to turn upon science. Make no mistake, the honeymoon century is over! When the intellectuals took science to their bosom in the nineteenth century they were sure they would live happily ever after. They are now tired of looking around the comer for a millennium that is not there. They are seeking a scapegoat for the present ills. They are beginning to think of divorce proceedings. People who should know better point to Nazi Germany as a horrible example of science carried to its logical conclusion. They forget that the Nazis have violated every high principle of science--have burned books, have forbidden the knowledge of facts, have created such national "scientific" dicta as a German physics and an Aryan race, have exiled or exterminated independent thinkers. These people look at the undoubtedly excellent Wehrmacht, made superior by an efficient application of good scientific technology, and call this Juggernaut "Science." As well blame a saw, wielded by a baby, for damage done and forever eschew its use. Science is a powerful tool; it is dangerous in irresponsible hands. But these critics go further and accuse science of being more than a non-moral means. It, and the rationalism on which it rests, have destroyed ends and undermined values: " . . . the most serious threat to
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"The role of pure science." Science. 88, 361-8 (1938). 8
democracy is the positivism of the professors, which dominates every aspect of modern education and is the central corruption of modern culture," says my colleague, Mortimer Adler. (Contrast the statement of the great Tyndall, at the end of the past century: "If Germany should ever change for something less noble the simple earnestness and fidelity to duty, which in those days characterized her teachers, and through them her sons generally,. it will not be because of rationalism. Such a decadent Germany might coexist within the most rampant rationalism without their standing to each other in the relation of cause and effect.") A tide of mysticism is rising, and reason is being mistrusted or actually derided. Think of the cartoon orgy directed against the Brain Trust, pictured as wildeyed professors in scabrous cap and gown. Whatever one's opinion of the then New Deal, the fact is patent that the experts were being held to scorn by such identification as thinkers and scholars. I repeat, in my Cassandra role: make no mistake; the light of reason, even more than that of freedom, may go out. A crisis in the human spirit looms ahead, and science may face a dark age. SCIENCE AND DEMOCRACY
Yet in principle science and democracy are kin. Democracy also depends on free exploration and discussion. In a genuine democracy the scientific habit of thought is absolutely essential. Decisions are reached after full consideration, from all representative viewpoints, of whatever facts are available and appear relevant; and, since action on any decision soon yields new facts, it can continuously be redirected toward the goal set. Of course, no existing or past democracy even approaches this goal-political campaigns are aimed a t emotion and prejudice, not a t understanding and knowledge. Partly, this state may be disposed of by the clichk, "Human Nature." Largely, Xantippi speaking, it is the mark of our failure, as teachers of science, to do our job properly. How can we expect citizens to act scientifically when they have never, even remotely, been exposed to (let alone dunked in) the scientific attitude? Demociacy, even what we yet have, is fighting for science, I am its life. Science will win the war-ur certain, on evidence too elaborate to detail here. But science will not win the peace. For one thing, a scientific approach to the problems of reorganization will not he used-the pull and tug of realists with particular interests will resolve the direction of movement, as always before. For another, the problem of ends is still not, or barely, withm the scope of science-even if idealists sit in the reconstruction councils they will be in dispute as to what ought to he done. Perhaps the peace will be lost again. But sooner or later, if democracy is to put healthy flesh on its abstract bones, the mass of people and their leaders must act scientifically. And this can be brought about only by the education they receive. Science in democracy has two educational duties:
to impart some understanding of science to all citizens; to ensure social breadth for all scientists. I am not considering the special job of educating scientists in their profession; this is universally recognized as important and, on the whole, is very well done, indeed. But the equally vital jobs, of tying our experts in to the social group and of extending the scientific atmosphere through it, are hardly recognized and are certainly not being done. Perhaps one or two per cent of the high-school students taking chemistry courses will become chemists or will ever use chemistry in any true professional sense. Yet they are taught in preparation for taking college courses in chemistry, which in turn largely prepare for advanced courses in chemistry. Our youngsters are taught this subject as if i t were to be their vocation; it should be taught for its avocational value. To be sure, an elementary acquaintance with the facts and relations of science would seem a prerequisite for satisfactory existence in the technological world of today. More, such knowledge can be vocationally useful in many non-scientific pursuits. I think of one-time fellow students in advanced chemistry who now use their science in the scattered fields into which i t led themadvertising, patent law, journalism, interior decoration, movie criticism, as well as the more obvious fields of industry. But chemistry is rarely taught with an eye on such tangential utility for non-scientists. Worse, the real beauty of this subject-in material phenomena and mental v i s t a s i s not "put across." Students put chemistry behind them with the same feelings as a wandering stranger does the desert. Even so gifted a man as President Hutchins recalled his chemistry only as a bad smell. Yet we dwellers in the desert know i t is beautiful; we must communicate some aesthetic appreciation of it to our visitors, not let them leave with hostility to our domain. Those of you who had the fortune of studying under Dr. Stieglitz know how this can be done; how, without voice inflection or emphatic gesture, he carried students into isomeric theory and left them starry-eyed. Worst, we fail to impart those mental attitudes of the practicing scientist which are so desperately needed if democracy is to flourish, if science is honestly to be applied to the problems of living together. For the scientific attitude brings4: release from superstitious fear (the unknown causes panic; the second bombing raid or gas attack will never start one); tolerance for the new (try things out and be guided by the evidence); intellectual honesty (what do the words really stand for?; and "God give me the courage to face a fact though i t slay me"). Now what of the complementary educational problem--of keeping the scientist from drifting into abysma1 specialization? I well recall from my student days a lecture which Carl Minor gave to the Kent Chemical Society under the title, "Come out of the kitchen." Chemists, he urged, should not remain as
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"The role of pure science," lac. cil.
laboratory technologists in the bowels of great iudustrial organizations but should learn something of and concern themselves with the workings of the whole, and should partially emerge into managerial and administrative responsibilities. They should enter the parlor. Today, a quarter century later, this move has been successfully made. I make the same plea now on a broader scale to fit the contemporary situation. Chemists, all scientists, are needed for thek contribution in running the whole social organization. They now have honored places a t the council table of war, they should merit them a t the councils of peace. Science must be applied to society and scientists must help do it. They must come out of their kitchens for part of the time. But this means that they must qualify themselves to be more than scientific specialists; they must know something of the workings of the whole "Society and Sons Co."; they must have a basic general education as well as a superposed special one; they must take an active and informed interest in their society, not only as citizens but also as scientists. (The spreading American Association of Scientific Workers is concerned with just this social responsibility of scientists, qua scientists.) The trend, unfortunately, has been the other way. As each science has flourished it has demanded more time of its students, until now chemistry courses (and some physics and math) fill three-fourths or more of the four-year college period of a student who hopes even for the low-order professional job open to a chemistry bachelor! I have no doubt that he gets good courses in chemistry, nor that the subject matter is now so huge that this training but scratches the surface-witness all the graduate work lying ahead in each subsection. I grant he learns scientiiic principles as well as facts. But, nonetheless, such a curriculum is perilously close to being that of a trade school rather than of a university. And such a curriculum, pursued a t the expense of rather than in addition to a broader education, cannot produce the rounded scientist of potential leadership but only the highly skilled and narrowed chemist. Remember Compton's story of his sister who, annoyed by the native electrician who continuously asked for instructions as he wired her house in India, burst, out, "Why don't you use your common sense?" "Madam," he replied with grave courtesy, "common sense is a rare gift of God. I have only a technical education." Huxley, recently discussing our college education in relation to the war, says, " . if the universities have the wisdom to see that their work does not end with the specialist training of the chemists, doctors, engineers, etc., required for immediate tasks, but also includes training in internationalmindedness and in the technics of international administration, they will have lifted their wartime function on to a new level of importance." The same, a t least on a national (if not yet on an international) basis, is true for peace as well. Hear Sherrington, Nobel laureate in physiology and past-president of the Royal Society:
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"Granted the scope of natural science be to distinguish true from false, not right from evil, that simply makes the man of science as such, not the whole man but a fractional man; he is not the whole citizen but a fraction of the citizen. The whole man, now that his mind has 'values,' must combine his scientific part-man with his human rest. Where his scientific part-man assures him of something and his ethical part-man declares that something to be evil, it is for the whole man in his doing not to leave it a t that. Otherwise in a world of mishap his scientific knowledge and his ethical judgment become two idle wheels spinning without effect, whereas they have been evolved and survive each to give the other &ect. But for that he would not have them. Without that will he retain them? If he prize them he must use them, or Darwin might tell him he may lose them." SCIENCE AND EDUCATION
So much, then, for the general relations of science to democracy. Let me consider a t last the particular role science should play in education as a whole. I am here concerned with higher general education-the arch of the foundation on which the special ivory towers may later be raised-not with the solid floor of the three R's nor with the later towers. What should the general education of a future adult and citizen supply to hi? A certain content, of course: the outstanding facts and interpretations that have been accumulated by past generations; the high lights of history, art, and literature, of the natural sciences, physical and biological, of the mental and social sciences. A smallscale map of the material and mental world, which man has deciphered or created over millenia, in which to set his future limited travels. Content, I emphasize, must not be merely a collection of facts; it must include, besides some facts, such theory, chronology, or other integrating mental threads as give meaning and coherence to the whole. Understanding more than knowledge is the aim. I have called this duty that of supplying grist for the mill. Another duty is to develop the mill. General education should complete the job of training in various skills; certainly the intellectual ones and certain manual ones (of studio, laboratory, etc.), and perhaps even "social" and emotional ones. The intellectual skills which must be mastered are the use of symbols and sources of information. Mathematics, English and other languages, philology, philosophy (e. g., logic)-all deal with symbols of first or higher orders, and these materials must not merely be known about and understood, but be familiar tools at the call of their possessor. Knowing where and how to obtain desired information is an equally important skiill (intellectual or manual) to acquire. The use of the library, the laboratory, the field tri-to obtain new live facts by observation or unfamiliar preserved ones by readingshould become as much an established habit as the use of number. Given an over-all orientation and given certain skills
of finding facts and reasoning with them, of accumulating knowledge and kneading it mentally into wisdom, then the crucial job of general education yet remains to be done. The student must then select a plot of ground somewhere in the vast terrain and farm it. He must apply these newly won skills and establish enduring habits of applying them validly. He must actively tackle an intellectual job of his own and carry it through with a minimum of guidance. He, himself, must find and solve real problems.. I t is at this point more than any other, I suspect more than all others, that general (and science) education has failed. We fail to get the mill into use. But, before salting the wounds, a word about the specific role of science in this education. Much of the content is from the realm of sciencein terms of fields, well over half; in terms of actual weights, probably each scholar will have a unique opinion, but none can deny a large fraction of the whole. Skills of number and observation are met overwhelmingly in the sciences, and the others are, of course, used in them. And, far the most important, the scientific attitude and method can be acquired and turned into lasting habits onIy by the active solution of fresh problems, by "research" in laboratory or field or librarycontribution to be made primarily by the sciences, supplemented by certain historicalcritical fields in the humanities. Now what are the general defects in our science teaching (I leave the followers of other disciplines to their own self-criticism) which have made its results so disappointing? These are general failures, not universal ones, and plenty of individual teachers have struggled against the ebb of vision in the profession, the poor material facilities, the overcrowded classes, the externally imposed strictures, and the unattractive personal arrangements which have helped bring about the present situation. I am not concerned with assigning blame but with noting, with a view to improving conditions. We have wallowed in facts. Instead of teaching facts as means to ends, we have tried to make scientific quiz kids of our students. Many f a d s taught are trivial from the start, many are obsolescent and soon obsolete, most are promptly forgotten. Don't misunderstand me--facts are absolutely essential; but they are a necessary, not a sufficient, condition to learning science. A few are useful in themselves, such as that gasoline fumes easily produce an explosion or that water expands on freezing, but most are useful only when set into interpretations and perspectives. To simply learn the atomic weights and numbers of all the elements is deadly, to learn them all in relation to the periodic table is wasteful (except for a future chemist), to learn the electronic interpretation of chemical activity, illustrated by only enough atomic instances to justify and illustrate this interpretation is fine. Yes, I know this is now the favored procedure, in principle; but how often is it really adhered to, how often does the process lapse into the old memorization
exercise? This is a second criticism-we do not, mostly, lead our students to see panoramas and understand relations; we are content when they can regurgitate the facts themselves. A dierent sort of criticism-we flagrantly violate the basic scientific virtue of accepting evidence rather than believing dogmatic assertion. We teach dogmatically. In textbook and lecture we expound the truth and then demand it back in quiz sections. We are thoroughly anti-scientific--we tell 'em! "Question nature, not books," said Agassiz, but we "dish it out" in the spoken and written word and we violate the spirit of enquiry even more in the laboratory. To be sure we often go through all the motions of being good scientists, giving our evidence and drawing inferences. Much of this, however, is rather like a piece of "scientific research" whimsically published by an eminent English scientist. His paper was couched in impeccable scientific dress. The object, clearly expounded, was to study the religious convictions of cockroaches. The method was described in repeatable detail-a meter-long, one-inch diameter glass tube was held horizontally; 100 roaches were placed a t the center; one end was then closed by a card on which was drawn a cross, the other end by a card with a crescent; a Bunsen burner was then lighted under the roaches. The extensive results were tabulated and graphed and statistically analyzed for significance. Finally, conclusions were drawn with proper precaution. This particular species of roach, obtained from such and such habitat, under the climatic conditions prevailing during the experimental period, as tested by the specific means described, contained 49% Christians who, faced with bodily peril, ran to the aoss, 48% Mohammedans, who similarly sought the crescent, and 3% atheists, who died where they stood rather than acknowledge the symbol of any religion! To sum up the general defects: facts are overemphasized; perspectives are neglected; learning is often rote and mostly passive; the student works to pass a course not to learn a subject, because learning is made a chore rather than a challenge; the teacher dogmatizes. The laboratory, which should serve to counteract just such defects, has, alas, become a particularly effective device for enhancing them. The student is made to perform a series of manual acts, usually so many "experiments" in a given time that their mere execution requires all his attention. These acts he performs passively (intellectually speaking) by following carefully detailed instructions in the lab manual. This is about as stirring to the mind as is executing setting-up exercises in time with the radio's "one-two-three-rest." In fact, even manual skills are not infrequently sacrificed for speed and the student finds his apparatus all neatly assembled so that he need, so to speak, only push buttons and read pointers. The "experiments" he is assigned are chosen primarily to illustrate or supplement lecture material, not for their intrinsic values. And, worst of all, the student hurriedly does as he is told, without thought,
sees what happens, without interest, and then blithely discards what he sees in favor of what the book says. How regularly will a student tell us that he got the "wrong" result or that the "experiment didn't work," and how much more often does he simply tell it to himself and forget his findings. Fine education. this is in the scientific faith of trusting the evidence! Fine education in the scientific method, in making controls, eliminating errors, validating results, drawjng conclusions based upon them! And so I evaluate our cur~entscience teaching, in terms of the jobs it should do for general education, as follows: i t certainly does impart content; it does indicate some relationships and train in some skills; it sadly fails to develop the scientific attitude or inculcate the habit of actively using it. In other words, our science teaching fails most completely in its one job which really matters to contemporary democratic society. It would again be possible to find reasons for all this-certain consequences of mass education, emphasis on academic labels and on the exams which then serve to bring them, poor salaries and other conditions which recruit often inferior personnel ihto teaching, and so on. But this is unimportant. What is important and called for is some constructive comment; else why this public mortification? I offer the following suggestions. Each teacher must follow his own genre, to be sure, yet few are so inflexible as to have no latitude. Any shift in classroom procedure away from the formal lecture or the formal quiz is likely to be helpful. If only we will be less wedded to systematic exposition and "coverage," and lead the students to understanding by guiding their own active discussion, we will move forward. It is a more difficult technic than lecturing but more interesting and more rewarding. It makes the difference, intellectually, that gradually guiding a child into deep water and active swimming does, emotionally, as compared with throwing him in. And it does favor understanding and breadth against memorized fragments. I treasure the comment made this summer by a girl a t the close of an elementary physiology course conducted solely by discussion, "You can't cram for this exam, because as we went along we had to understand." Someone has said that the acid test for elementary science teaching is the success it would have if the teacher were on an island, instructing its untutored natives, with no prepared equipment. This is worth considering, especially with high-school age savages who, also, must be led from their own particular experiences and interests to insight into more general principles. (Why is i t that youngsters are fascinated by scientific hobbies, unite into innumerable vital junior science clubs, but leave the school science courses with boredom in their souls?) Another suggestion along these lines: encourage the student to reason and to experiment from his own past observations. The action of heat as a catalyst can be inferred by any youth who has seen ice boxes and stoves a t work in the kitchen. His observation of the
evaporation of water from a kettle and of the solution of sugar in a cup of tea are sufficientbasis for leading him to the kinetic particles of matter. And with an occasional prodding question to help him along, he can deduce a kinetic interpretation of thermal catalysis. Then why not let him go further, for he surely will want to, and make some real experiments himself-to determine, say, how much acceleration of this or that chemical reaction is brought about by various temperature increments? And now I have come to the peak toward which this talk has been climbing. Each student can be led to do his laboratory work (and his thinking) in the same spirit as the investigator does his research. He can posit his own problem, work out his own methods, make and repeat and evaluate his original observations; he will suffer the dmdgery of preparation and of repetition and the disappointment of blunder and failure, but he will experience the thrill of real discovery and achievement that makes all the other so worth while; he must learn the meaning of evidence and the pitfalls of observation, and he must finally draw his conclusions and learn how to test and support them. He will learn, by actively pursuing it, the scientific attitude. Don't say, "It can't be done." It can be, for it has been. The evidence on such an educational experiment is available,6 and the results are positive indeed! To follow the particular example on temperature. A thermometer, a burner, perhaps ice, a watch, pans or beakers, and water are the only essentials to determine reasonable temperature coefficients. Innumerable chemical and physical reactions await the choice of the student, ones which can be followed by easily available means: the coagulation of egg white in an egg or in a capillary tube; the turning rancid of butter measured with litmus or titrated with alkali; the rate of evaporation of water from any graduated straight-walled vessel; the volume of a gas, in a burette tube standing in water; the development of photographs by reducers; and on, so far as the collective ingenuity of youth can range. Nor will the problem remain limited to temperature. Questions of concentration will promptly arise. The devising of usable tests and "set-ups" will tempt many into new experimental paths. Control of conditions may lead to the study of other catalysts-water, light, acid, surfaces. The variability of results under "constant" conditions should encourage some to make statistical evaluation and teach all not to clutter riurnerical results with meaningless digits beyond the decimal point. Some students may even spread into biology, largely chemistry anyway, and find out how the rate of respiration of a fish or the growth of bacteria pass through optimal temperatures. We can go on inventing these experimental adventures, but that is uncalled for. The students will
invent them if given the slightest freedom and encouragement. And they will carry them out soundly and completely to reach defensible conclusions. They will, surprisingly, learn an enormous amount of chemical facts and theory-for any small problem demands all sorts of a n d a r y knowledge. They will ask you to tell them this until they learn that you will not give such answers. Then they will ask each other, then go to the library (and really learn how to use it), then to the test of their own experiments. And'if each student demonstrates his work to the others (as well as argues about i t through the whole course), what a range of subject matter they will cover. And master! Remember, I am not predicting now, I am reporting; for that is what happened. It amounts to this. Our main duty to the great bulk of the students who take elementary science, and to our democratic way of living together (which really put those students into those classes), is to teach them to meet the problems of later life by the disciplined use of reason. This is to approach these problems with the attitude of the scientist toward his science and to tackle them with his method. The student must live science, not learn about it, in his formative years if he is to act scientifically later. To live science he must actively adventure on his own, must recognize and solve his own problems, must do "research." And the laboratory is the boat which fares into this world of exploration, which excites yet restrains the imagination of its pilot. You may recall Wood's response when asked the difference between physics and metaphysics. "The other day as I dozed," he said, "a solution to a problem that had been worrying me popped into my mind. It seemed like a good idea and I slept over it. In the morning I considered all the ramifications of the problem and the solution fitted; I thought it a very good idea. Then a study of other available material in the library convinced me that i t was a darn good idea. So I went to the laboratory and did some experimentsand the solution failed. The metaphysician," he concluded, "has no laboratory.'' , We scientists and science teachers have a tremendous responsibility to the future. What we discover will continue to revolutionize the material ways of life. How we apply, and teach others to apply, our procedures and their yield can determine the spiritual ways of life as well. Lindsay has put the issue clearly in a recent Sigma Xi lecture: " . . . the great paradox of our civilization (is) the failure of man as a moral, spiritual, and social individual to adjust himself adequately to an environment radically altered by the applications of science. This adjustment will come, but only as a slow process of evolution which will put a decided premium on our patience. It will come when the scientific method makes as great an impact on the thoughts of men as it has made on their external environment." To install the scientific attitude in the thoughts of men-that, fellow-teachers of science, is our real job.
