hut heyond that one can go a long way wondering, "What is it, what does it do, how does it do it, how did it get that way, what is it made of, what purpose does it serve, and what makes it tick'?"-questions beyond ~ i u m l ~ e rAnd . it, will hegin with the near a t hand: the paper, the pencil, the ink, the crayon, t,he leaf, the flower, t,he turtle, the rabbit,, until, increasingly, every ordinary it.rm of life begins to become extraordinary. In short,, if we want children to be well-exposed to science and for science to become a universal fascination, it must he approached from a t,ruly scientific point of view. There is an increasing number of good textbooks in elementary science to serve as source books for teachers hut in our est,imation, science cannot properly he taught out of a t-exthook. Science is not something l,o be sliced up int,o hit,e-sized doses t o be ret,ailed t o children in well-packaged servings so much a day. nor should there be a stock diet for each given year. I n the early years, science, to be real, has to he a derivative of all other aspects of the curriculun~, flexibly developed and individuidly tailored to each group and classroom and hawing its stimulus and motivation from the daily substance of experience at home and school. Approsiching science this way, t,here is also the likelihood of another in~portiuit,educational derivative, namely thc prospect that the scient,ist, even 1,he highly specialized scientist, will not isolate himself in a world of his own separate from the artist., t,he musician, the novelist, the poet. It is import,ant
that each should have more than a no auce with the other, that they should verse together as intel each other's work and see the creative effort of as simply different facets of a mult,i-dimensions tempt t o penetrate the inner mysteries of life. the scientist t o he content to dig himself deep his hole is as reckless as for the philosopher t his ivory tower uncont,aminated by the real The habit. of mind t,hat steadily searches theoh and near a t hand for fuller meaningwould appear the real essence of the scientific spirit. Here is the appetit,e of the true scientist is first ivhtm finding t,he fascinating, close under one's own nose. In our ju not alone ^hem the top flight nuclea their st.:irtÑan the of, mnspheros where major break throughs may be pectcd-but equally it. is the breeding gronnd for h mult,itude of everyday scientists working on prohlemperhaps less world-shaking in their signifirani'e k: none t,he less close t,o man's health and hilppiu* Whether the lat,ter are t,hr pressing problems of fi. under-developed nations of the earth or the xiew cduc:it~iouproblems of tlie local public school may !È relatively inconsequential but we believe conims 1' this kind derive from the approach to scienrr educate, here outlined. ~OLVII13. SMITH. DIRECT^.
w i t h i n the past few "ears, it has become necessary t o introduce radioche&try and nuclear chemistry into an already crowded curriculum. Material has been developed a t all levels from the general course to graduate work. This symposium was organized t o share the experience of some of the leaders in the field in presenting this material a t all of these levels. The problem is essentially twofold: first, how t o present radioactivity and nuclear chemistry in an int,eresting manner t o the large numbers of undergraduate students, and, second, how t o prepare our graduate students for research in this new field. There is general agreement that efforts must he continued in both these areas. THIS JOURNAL has published many articles pertinent
t o this subject. Thirty-six of them ha in a volume distributed gratis by Corporation, Des I'laines, Illinois. This symposim goes heyond that volume in covering all aspects of ffc subject. The introductory paper, by Charles D. Coryell,d the Massachusetts Institnt,e of Technology, incline the historical development and an emphatir d e l i tion of the imnortanee of the subiect. The a11stract.n:' his paper, entitled "The ~adioac&tion of Chmi follows: The history of the development of nuclear chemistry rep the commonest at,tribute of the field which is taught he
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Journal o f Chemical Education
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