THE
National Science Teachers Association deserves congratulation on its recent Second Annual Meeting. This association, whose activity mostly concerns the educational levels below the college, should he more appreciated by those teaching a t all levels. We whose interests are centered in one of the subjectmatter fields, such as chemistry, must recognize that science teaching is a more general problem in the secondary school. While chemistry, physics, and biology may indeed maintain a separate existence there for some time to come, nevertheless the main problem is to keep science in its proper place in the secondaryschool curriculum. I t is even more important that the student-product shall be delivered to the chemistry teacher in college with a well oriented background in science than with a half-digested preparation in chemistry. Of course, it would be nice to have both, but we can't always have what we want. Science teachers must hang together and unite their voices if they are to maintain their place in the educational picture against all the pressures that are now coming to bear. It is perhaps shocking to realize that
there is any argument about "the place of science in general education." A gathering such as the one mentioned above shows the error of a common misconception. The idea that subject matter is not thought to be important by elementary and secondary-school teachers is not as widely held as many people suppose. While some "educationists" may perhaps believe that a teacher need not know anything about what he is teaching, this belief certainly does not dominate the lower fields of science education. More than a scattering of those a t the NSTA meeting might be described as "educationists," and I met none who did not want the science teacher to be as well versed in his subject matter as possible. Let us not be too ready to ascribe "guilt by association" but rather to be sure of our facts. I t is difficult for the college teacher and the secondary-school teacher to find a common ground, either in the subject matter itself or in their respective educational problems, which are so different. Nevertheless, in the interest of the larger objectives with which they are both concerned, such a common meeting ground should be sought by an effort from both directions.
