SCIENCE EDUCATION1 RICHARD D. WELLS Bates Manufacturing Company, Lewiston, Maine
Wam Austin Kibbee first suggested I prepare a paper for this meeting, I thought it would be rather uncharitable to say "No" to a man paying for a longdistance call out of a school teacher's salary. I had first thought to pick a safe subject, l i e textile research, about which I knew something, but you, perhaps, very little. Having previously expressed (to Mr. Kibbee's knowledge) some thoughts on education, I then thought I might venture into your field, but giving you the viewpoint of an outsider. I could at least speak as a product of science education, and as an employer and associate of such products in industrial affairs. But as my thoughts progressed I found even that assignment rather cramping. If my thesis is right, science edncation for industry is no different essentially from science education for anything else. And so I broke down all limitations and have assumed the title for this talk "Science education for anything and everything." If I seem to flounder, please pardon. At least I am having the nerve to bring up things which most others have preferred to dodge. I hope better spokesmen for my thesis will be able to present i t more coherently as time goes on. I n pursuing this I am not going to differentiate between mathematics., ~hvsics. - " . chemistrv, - . and the biological sciences. If my thesis is correct, these have far more in common than in distinction. First I shall talk about objectives. Why is science taught in the schools, anyway? If we run through the "why's" now, perhaps we can better view the "how's" and "wherefore's" later. I n going through these I will assign no rank or priority. I will skip lightly over the obvious for the sake of devoting time to the more obscure but none the less significant. Number one, of course, is the need to stretch and diversify the curriculum. Science subjects help keep youth busy with relatively harmless activities during that difficult period when their glands have stolen an extra lap on their senses. One can only go so far and reach so many with the banana countries, Gettysburg. Silas Marner, football, and the socially acceptable 1 Presented a t the 267th Meeting of the NEACT, St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, October 18, 1952.
French verbs. Some of the others must be diverted by burets, prisms, equations, and frogs. Let us not underrate this "preventive" phase of education. Beyond its immediate effect on motor fatalities and "good-will" home statistics, i t has enduring value as a habit-former. An experience with intellectual hobbies, even though by regimentation, leaves its mark. Who knows but what anarchy itself is staved off by people's preoccupation with reading, tinkering, and arguing of petty details. Science education is particularly important in this because of its retention value. Men boast of their ignorance of Caesar, Proust, and Rand-McNally, but feel a real kinship with both Edison and Einstein. A second purpose of science education is to help shape the all-round man, and, if not overdone, the nicely rounded woman. This objective is assumed by the hazy but basically sound instinct of the classical traditionalist, and is also claimed by the hard-boiled realist who figures, "you never know what you are going to run into." The all-round person is that because he has perception for, appreciation of, and perspective on, many things. He can judge a man by his speech, attitudes, talent, and vital forces and form a coordinated impression. He can hear a factory whistle and know it as a pulsating column of vapor as well as a shrill summons to servitude. He views a traffic accident and carries away a total memory including kinetics;high-octane fuel, and low-compression brains. I n all these he senses the objective as well as the subjective. No one will dispute the place of science education in man's ability to know himself and what goes on around him. My third item may have been generally overlooked, but it is deserving of attention. It is real and explains in good part the popularity of science courses today, and can thus be considered a justification if not a conscious objective of science education. It has to do with prestige in the battle of the sexes, and in the battle of the generations. You remember it was Eve who first assumed a taste for the fruit of knowledge. Adam went along with the idea with, I imagine, no great enthusiasm, but prompted
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