1358
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
JULY,
1931
The preceding glossary should help prevent this article from adding any more confusion in regard to these two elements. Literature Cited ( 1 ) "The New English Dictionary," Clarendon Press, Oxford, Vol. VI, 1908, p. 29,
115. ( 2 ) "The Encyclopaedia Britannica," 14th ed., Encyclopaedia Britannic*, Inc., New York City, vol. XIV, 1929, pp. 635, 797. (3) MELLon, "Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry," Longmans, Green & Co., London, Vol. IV, 1923, p. 249.
Language Said to Hinder Study of Personality. Language is one of the things that have stood in the way of a scientific study of human personality, Dr. Mark A. May, of the Institute of Human Relations, Yale University, said in a recent report to the Psychological Corporation. "We have more scientific facts about the behavior of wasps, hees, frogs, chickens, rats, rabbits, and apes than we have about human behavior, for the reason that animals cannot talk to us. Beina unable to communicate with them by language we have been forced t o develop technic for close observation of their behavior. When we want t o know something about the behavior of a spider we watch its behavior and devise an elaborate system of notc-taking for recording our observations systematically. "But when we want t o know about the behavior of our fellowman we either ask him or ask some one else, or give him a test, or get him to answer a questionnaire. I verily helieve that if all psychologists were deaf and dumb we would know more about the plain facts of every-day life than we now do. "But this is not all," Dr. May added. "Language is a further handicap to the progress of science in another way. Ethnologists tell us that the English language was not invented by a committee of scientific men appointed hy some royal primitive society. Natural and biological scientists got on to this fact long ago and invented a language of their own drawing heavily on the Latin and Greek. But the psychologists and social scientists still stick to Noah Webster's dictionary. The result is that it is well-nigh impossible to describe human behavior in terms that are precise and unambiguous. . . -Science Service Junior High Pupils Lack Mathematical Concepts. Fewer than twa-thirds of the fundamental mathematical concepts necessary far the solution of problems in mathematics are understood by the average child when he finishes the Junior High School, it was revealed by a study reported by Charles H. Butler, of the University of Missouri. to a recent meeting in Cleveland of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Concepts dealing with money, and others on certain geometric forms, were most readily understood, Mr. Butler found when he tested a large number of children in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades. Seventy-five per cent of the pupils in each grade have mastered volume, circle, taxation, profit, triangle, and length. Only about two per cent of all the eighth-grade pupils knew what the root of a number is, however. Prof. Butler was surprised t o discover that the largest schools with their greater outlay of money for tuiiion did not show up as well in respect t o this type of mathematical instruction as did the small schools in rural communities.-Science Service
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