Rise of Laboratory Work in High School Chemistry e r e r p f e d from "The Rise of High School Chemistry in America (to 1920)" by Sidney Rusen J. CHEM. EDUC., 33,627 (1956)
The Boston Girls' High and Normal School is credited with being the first t o hegin lahuratory teaching in chemistry in 186.5 However, the records u f t h e Boston School Committee make no mention of this laboratory work until 1871, when the high school was moved into new quarters which included a special laboratory room. T h a t year, the principal of the high school described the use of the labmatory in his report. T h e lahoratary was nut ready for use until the first week in J a n u a r y . . ..A portion of the time allotted to mineralogy was given to chemistry t o acquaint the class with laboratory work.. . . T h e presenl class (about 270) perform experiments under the eye uf the special teachers of chemistry and their regular teacher twice a week, and will d a so for sinteen weeks, therehy gaining not only a knowledge of the elements and oftheir more useful compounds. .but also hy the success and failure of their experiments.. .they receive an education in patience, watchfulness, and exercise of forethought that will pmve invaluable t o them through life, in the discharge of domestic, social, and prot'essional duties.
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Notice that laboratory instruction was then considered a specialized field requiring scrmeone with experience beyond 1 hat 01 the teacher in the recitation elassmom.
T h e laboratory method of teaching chemistry spread rapidly through the larger city school systems in Massachusetts. Hy 1871, chemistry laboratories were in operation in the Cambridge High School, the Boston English High School, and the 'Ihrchester High School. T h e eloquent report of the latter's principal in the 1871 Report of the Boston School Committee is particularly indicative of the change of attitude toward chemistry teaching a t the time of the innovation of the laboratory method: And first, in regard t o chemistry: t h e course of instruction in this science twenty years ago was confined to rocks; the pupil was taught some of the leading facts of the science, made acquainted with some of the technical terms, and rarely permitled tu witness a few dazzling experiments by the hands of lhe teachers and t o listen to a few explosions. These served to amuse, if they failed t o instruct, and perhaps mast frequently left the impression upon the scholar's mind o f a mysterious and dangerous art, rather than that of a useful science.. . . T h e scholar is now taught t o converse directly with nature. Instead of learning an arbitrary rule far the preparation of oxygen and hydrogen, he takes the materials into his own hands and prepares the gases himself.. . His chemistry becomes a part of his experience.
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Thus, by 1871, the high school chemistry course had already acquired the reputation of being a subject where the pupil "had t o get his fingers dirty." This kind of teaching in the high school, however, was t o be carried t o such extremes hy the turn of the century that educators began t o complain of the irresistible wave of lahoratwy madness sweeping over the educatimd w d d . "Things have been expected uflahratory work," wrote k a e p h Torrey, dr., in the preface to his texthook ~puhlishedin 1899, "which it never did and never can do."
404 / Journal of Chemical Education
