THE
training of physical scientists in the United States can be, very possibly, as vitally important to the defense of this country as the absence of communists in the federal government-Mr. McCarthy to the contrary notwithstanding. A recent article under this title1 raises some very interesting questions and makes some very interesting, and unorthodox, proposals. The author, Marshall J. Walker, of the University of Connecticut, is a young man with a very intense enthusiasm for the value of mathematics and the physical sciences, not only for the future welfare of the country hut also for the general education of any and everyone. He makes the strongest attack I have yet seen on the current tendency in our secondary schools to slight these subjects in favor of But his proposal for action is the real feature, and it easier and momentarily more popular ones. intrigues one more as he thinks about its possibilities: To he sure, he does not subscribe to the view that I In a typioal high school shout 7 per cent of the students will expressed here last month, that American scientists are have sufficient ability to pursue graduate work. This 7 per cent the equal of any in the world; indeed, he quotes some is to he orovided with asneeidinstructor who will heln themlearn rather telling evidence to the contrary. He finds our mathekatics, physics, and chemistry. In the beginning, their higher educational system seriously substandard in com- remaining suhjecteEnglish, history, languages, and so onhe learned from the regular teachers following the regular parison with the English, although Campbell's com- would schedule. The four-year course in mathematics could be divided parison, which we published last month, does not alto- somewhat as follows: first year, geometry and trigonometry; gether hear this out. Nevertheless, Walker says, Ameri- second year, algebra; third year, analytic geometry and differencan Rhodes Scholars have always found it difficult to tial calculus; and fourth year, integral calculus and ordinary difcompete with their younger English classmates a t Ox- ferential eaurttions. The nhvsies and chemistrv courses would differ fromihe present o r d k i r y courses not so much in content, ford, and their records have been almost hopelessly be- but chiefly in the additional depth provided by an instructor hind those of Rhodes Scholars from the Universities of thoroughly acquainted with the field. . . . . Australia and New Zealand. The teacher of such a course should have a. Ph.D. with his But this is not the main point; we must deal with the major and two minors ohosen a s any combination of physics, and mathematics. The type of man desired will not condition in our schools today, and we can agree that chemistry, be tempted by industrial salaries, hut he should be paid a t least among the most dangerous elements in our secondary the salary given an assistant professor of these subjects in the school system is, first, the increasing tendency to dis- state university. For the man who wants to teach, this aggressive criminate against mathematics and the physical sci- 7 per cent of students will offer an opportunity which he would ences, and second, our disregard for the small hut seldom encounter undiluted in any ordinary college. It is sugthat these instructors be employees of the appropriate important percentage of really superior students, in the gested science of mathematics department of the state university. Their effort to satisfy the limited educational needs of every- services would he available to any high school which could probody. vide proper space and equipment, and a guaranty that the class It may be, as the author thinks, that our situation is would number not more than twenty students. deteriorating. "The scientists of the United States This is a new type of "university extension" which I today include many who were trained in European must say appeals to me. It is an attractive solution t o schools. The remainder are the product of the United the question of what to do about the superior students, States schools of thirty years ago, when the educational who now seem t o be little more than a nuisance to accent was still on preparation for college." many high-school administrations. His main thesis, however, which leads to his later The author neatly and firmly disposes of some possiproposal, is expressed : ble objections: Won't this proposal cost alot of money? The mast important single reason for the inferiority of our (Perhaps, so what?) Isn't this undemocratic? (Quite graduates in science is that mathematied preparation for serious the contrary, any student has a chance.) Are there study is not given early enough. No quantitative science can be enough high-school students who could follow such a taught in an efficient way until the student has mastered celculus. program? (Certainly!) Is it wise to encourage Currently, most students in the United States complete elemonspecialization so early? (But this isn't specialization.) tary calculus in their fourteenth year. Tho technioal student in A strong point is made of the value of this procedure a European secondary school completes the same preparation in the twelfth year. This two-year delay is a fatal handicap and by in general education, whether or not there is any "carry itself is sufficiently serious to account for the poor showing of the over" of training into other fields. Such a course as that United States among the Nobel Prize winners in the physical proposed is worth while for its own sake, if not as sciences. I n physics and chemistry, a man's peak production occurs near thirty years of age. The typical European student preparation for future research. His "punch line" is: receives his university degree a t the age of twenty-four; the "Mathematics courses through calculus are the typical student in the United States receives his Ph.D. a t the age 'children's diseases' of learning, and one who has not of twenty-seven. This leaves the researcher of the United States had them cannot consider himself completely adult." with a productive "half-life" only half as long as his foreign Even if this proposal shouldn't prevent the drift competitor's. away from the exact sciences, it might help t o keep them where they will do the most good. 'WALKER,MARSAALL J., J . of Higher Educ., 8, 417 (1954).
