SEPTEMBER, 1953
defects itan be remedied in t,ime, if enough people will i t so and do something about it. There are national organizations working toward these ends a t the present time. The National Education Association is an example. The NEA has long st,ood for improvement in puhlic education. And yet, how many college chemist,ry teachers have shown their concern for the qualit,y of our educational product by joining the NEA? I venture to guess that t,he number would be of the order of magnitude of the number of New Hampshire secondary-school teachers who are members of the NEACT. The problem of starting more youngsters on the road to a career in chemistry will demand careful planning and concerted action by all interested parties. Improved teaching in secondary schools is certainly a must, in this program. No plan to bring this improvement about will be effective unless it starts with the felt needs of the teacher himself. I have tried to outline some of those needs.
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conveut,ion in a long and didactic article ent,itled aspect.^ of isomerism and mesomerism. I. (a) Folmulas and their meaning" by Richard L. Bent appearing on page 223 of the May, 1953, issue of the .JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION.It is high time that American chemist,^ either familiarize themselves wit,h these simple usages or discontinue writing about t,hem. MELVILLE L. WOLFROM
T o thc Editor: Georg Lockemann and Ralph Oesper published a very useful article on the history of chemical laboratory instmrtion in the April issue of the JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION.There is a widespread belief among chemists who are interested in history that Justus Liehig was the first teacher t,o open a laboratory for the instruction of students; and I have even heard a professor of history of science in one of our great universities say in a lecture that the significant fact of Liebig's life was that he had originated laboratory instruction. Actually, laboratory instruction came about by a T o thc Editor: slow process of evolution, the evolution being governed A model and its properly drawn perspective picture by the rate of advancement of chemistry, by its inare unambiguous entities. A projection drawing is creasing complexity, by the cost of chemicals, appaanother matter. To so define an object, the principles ratus, and laboratory constmct~ion,and by the demand of orthographic projection require three views cor- for chemist,^ by industry. responding to the X, Y, and Z axes of solid geometry. Student. laboratories were first opened in Europe, When, then, as in the representation of configurational and finally reached t,he Unit,ed States around 1810formulas, only one view is used in a projection drawing, fifteen years before Liebig opened his laboratory a t it is necessary to lay down and follow some "rules of Giessen. the game." Such rules were proposed by Emil Fischer The history of 1aborat)ory instruction has been a [Ber., 24, 2683 (1891) 1, 62 years ago, and have since neglected field, and fundamental research must he been well recognized and employed by qualified in- done on the subject before worth-while generalizations vestigat,ors concerned with their use. These rules or can he made. But t,he article by Lockemann and convent,ions have been again detailed in recent years Oesper will at least help to bring to an end t,he common by C. S. Hudson [Aduances in Carbohydrate Chem., 3, error that Liehig fonnded chemical laboratory inst,nic1 11948)l , . and in the oublished nomenclature com1,1011. mittee reports on carbohydrates and amino acids WYNDHAM MILEB appearing in Chem. Eny. News, 26, 1626 (1948), 30, 4522 (1952), 31, 1777 (1983). I t is t,hereforeextremely A ~ ~ ~ , " ~ & ~ ~ , " , " P P disconrerting to note the employment of the incorrect ~i,,,;s,\-oo~, MARYLANI) L.
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