MANY ways the war has brought chemistry into INcloser relation with the neighboring fields of physics and engineering and has forced a comparison not only of our respective possibilities and accomplishmeuts but even of our ways of managing our own affairs. But so far as we know, no one has made a serious attempt to compare our organized efforts a t education. F i t , to get some idea of our respective sizes, the American Chemical Society numbers something over 34,000. This is supposed to include nearly half the chemists in the country. The last report on the size of the American Physical Society is 4300. The case of the engineers is a little different. There are estimated to be about 280,000 in the country, but since they are not quite so homogeneous a group as the chemists or physicists, a total of the membership of the various engineering institutes would not have quite the same meaning as the membership of the chemical or physical societies. However, the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education is a strong and influential organization with a membership of 3461, that is, approximately 1'/4 per cent of the engineers of the country and 60 per cent of the teaching staff of 166 listed engineering schools. The American Association of Physics Teachers is an independent organization, with no organic relation to the American Physical Society, and with 1140 members. The corresponding organization in the field of cliemistry is the Division of Chemical Education in the American Chemical Society, whose membership is difficult to estimate fairly. Of @id members there have not been more than 200 for many years, oue-half of one per cent of the Soaety's membership. But perhaps this does injustice, since the payment of dues to the various divisions of the Society is voluntary, and any member of the Society has the right to take part in the activities of any division by merely announcing his desire to do so. As a matter of fact, paid-up membership is not even a prerequisite to election to office in the Division. Nevertheless, very few nonpaying members participate in the affairs of the Division beyond delivering an occasional paper. All in all, the ostensible numerical record of the representative organization of chemistry teachers is not impressive. So let us turn from quantity to quality. The Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education includes some of the most prominent engineers, deans of engineering, and presidents of engineering schools, who play a dominant part in it. Some of the most prominent physicists hold membership and office in the Association of Physics Teachers. And how is it with us in chemistry? With few exceptions, the heads of our large departments of chemistry, the deans of our schools of chemistry, our highestreputed professors of chemistry-all of whom should be considered outstanding "chemical educatorsn-are either too preoccupied with other matters to be concerned with the one professional organization in this
field, or feel that the efforts of that organization are not worth their active cooperation. This is not the mere acidity of "sour grapes"; it is an honest inquiry into the trouble. Why are so many of our prominent "chemical educators" so uninterested in the Division of Chemical Education? The trouble may be withm our own organization, or it may he more or less inherent in a situation which can be altered. The main difficultyis perhaps to be found in the fact that chemical education covers such a long range in the educational scale-practically from the elementary to the graduate school. The interests of few people are so wide as to include all this. At the lower end the effortis to make chemistry popular and understandable to the layman, while a t the upper end it is directed entirely to the technical training of professional chemists. Perhaps no one has time to give more than passing attention to both general and professional educational problems. And it is true that the Division of Chemical Education was established by pioneers who were concerned with problems a t a more or less elementary level.' Perhaps this was unfortunate; nevertheless, it should not make the unification of the field impossible. To a certain extent, the situation is an outgrowth of the old conflict between teaching and research. The Division has always been a meeting ground for those whose interests and abilities have been more largely in the former than in the latter activity. To suggest that i t therefore consists largely of "second-raters" would, of course, bring forth a cry of indignation. Moreover, to those a t the upper end of the educational scale "teaching" has always implied diierent aims and methods than to those a t the lower endand vice versa. The high-school teacher and the graduate professor cannot speak the same educational language; it is beside the point to dispute which has the proper "dialect." It is appropriate--but probably uselessto point out that as prominent and highbrow a scientist as Michael Faraday thought it worth while to deliver lectures to children, in the halls of the Royal Society. We do not suggest that our best present-day chemists are unappreciative of the value of elementary science education, nor deplore the fact if it is true. We merely point it out as a possible factor. The activities of the Division have been thought by some to be too much dominated by the views of the "educationists," and none seem to be so suspicious of these folk as do the "researchers." Which is a bit strange, perhaps, since the educationists are the researchers in their own field, and this ought to entitle them to talk, a t least, even though the listeners don't like what they say. But that is beside the point. There is no denying that the training of chemists is an
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important branch of chemical education. Yet when because their whole effort is professional; there is no enit comes to matters seriously concerning this branch, gineering education below the university level. The the Division of Chemical Education is generally thought physicists have avoided the problem by virtually to be incompetent to handle them satisfactorily. abandoning the secondary schools and concentrating And perhaps it is. But if so it is because the men on the higher level. whose administrative job is guiding the professional As for us, we would be very reluctant to forsake the training of chemists are not the guiding spirits of this background of work in the more elementary fields, Division. which has been laid with such great effort over such a So we have the spectacle of a Division of Chemical long time. Nor need we do so, probably; if i t cannot Education which does not completely represent the be reconciled with development a t the other end of the whole field of chemical education. It has often been educational scale we face a difficult decision. But it criticized for not representing fully the field of second- does seem that the time has come for the Division to ary school chemistry; similarly it does not represent take a more prominent place in the field of professional completely the uppermost level of the scale. education and to enlist in its service the kind of men The engineers do not have this anomaly, principally who can give weight to our efforts in that field.
