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CHEMICAL DIGEST
1939
A constructive program of character building must provide the needed and purposeful social activities which will enable the stndent-teachers t o engage in these activities with whole-souled directness. An indirect approach must be devised as a means to directness. New purposes grow, or are created, only in the midst of social action. One phase of a social experience is the evaluation of the consequences of that experience. If a person carefully evaluates the results of his action as he pursues his purpose, he will also be modifying his original aim. Through deliberate reflection on the social consequences he constructs a new purpose. His character is changed as he evaluates intelligently and reasonably. Worthy purposes arise out of intelligent experiencing. But intelligent evaluation of experience can scarcely occur unless the studentteacher has some standard of ethical ideal. The person must be able t o tell when he has attained desirable results. Constructive, consistent character-building cannot proceed unless one has a point of view or aim in life. This need for a unifying aim or social philofophy is easily forgotten in the midst of building a personality development program. The most liberal functioning of intelligence can and should be encouraged in every stage and phase of character training. No habits should be formed except for a purpose. Habits so formed are intelligent activities. Mechanical methods produce habits which are so dissociated from each other that even reason cannot integrate them. But if reason is given a fair chance from the beginning, integration will be, in a large measure, a continuous characteristic of the system of habits as it is developed. Personality is, a t best, a unity which is constantly being achieved and reformed in such a way that the contribution of past experience (habitual activity) c a n u d be disactivity) tinguished from the creative modification (intelliacnt . .. which must occur in the solution of the new problem in ethics presented by the new occasion of the present moment. The essential feature of character formation is the liberation of intelliaence in the pursuit of specific ends. When intelligence is given free play in the teachinzof ideals no narrow loyalty t o this ideal or that ifleal is established. Each ideal as it rs formed becomes a memher of thc whole poinr of \.it.w, modifying the aim of life and being modificd nt the same timu So the student-teacher learns t o integrate his life and regulate it in the light of one system or point of view which is organized in such a way as t o include all the aims of life. The method of personality improvement adopted in teacher-training institutions should concentrate upon the construction and attainment of a central aim for education. I n the direct punuit and accomplishment of this task, the faculty and students may lose the kind of self-consciousnessthat interferes soseriously with their effective social adion, and in so doing may step out into a kind of direct, whole-souled activity which will actually result in the attainment of superior personality without danger of feeling that superiority.
R. M. P.
TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY FROM A FACTORY VIEWPOINT* The vocational outlook of the student in chemistry has broadened within twenty-five years from that of a teaching position, or a minor place incidental to certain industries, to the present manifold possibilities of employment in chemical works where the student's opportunity is limited only
* I,. F. NICKELL, Trans. 112.Amd. Sci., 22,377-80
(April, 1930).
1940
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
Aucusr, 1930
by his own native ability, personality, and chemical training. Within this same length of time the language of chemistry has been translated into the language of the balance sheet, and thus i t is no ionger a foreign tongue to bankers or to the general public. In order that the chemical plant may manufacture a t low cost it must be manned with technical men. The supply of chemists and chemical engineers of proper caliber to meet these demands is far enough short a t present to prove a handicap to the industry. Technical schools and universities are taking measures to meet this situation but only a beginning has been made and much more remains to be accomplished. The activity of the chemically trained man finds outlet in the following ways: (1)research, (2) analytical control, (3) supervision of manufacturing operations, (4) engineering, (5) executive, (6) sales. Men of widely divergent traits may find success in one or the other of these activities. But for all-a thorough knowledge of the fundamental laws and principles of chemistry and physim is an absolute necessity. The teaching of such fundamental laws and principles must be accompanied by a snEicient amount of fact t o amplify, explain, and fix them indelibly in the student's mind. At best, a technical course can only supDIV . . a man the tools with which t o work. The graduate is not a finished product; he must always continue t o be the student and the investigator; his curiosity must always be alive and his imagination must ever be keen and active; hut these avail him little if he cannot solve his problem when he meets i t and recognizes it; and it is a grievous thing t o find how often technical men of real accomplishment lack the ability t o apply fundamentals such as gas laws, t h h a l laws. vapor pressure, mass action, or centrifugal force t o the problems confronting thew.
The courses which teach these fundamental laws too often fail to receive the attention they should. The student who becomes well grounded in fundamentals should be trained in resourcefulness in applying them. He should learn to make use of such imagination as he possesses, and should acquire reading habits that will enable him to gain information on his own account. The teacher in chemistry would do well t o follow the example of the English teacher in giving outside reading assignments t o students and requiring reports on such assign.What is he to do in the factory if the problem confronting him can not be ments. found in a textbook?
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The student should acquaint himself with numerous processes outlined in industrial chemistry texts, but such acquaintance should be gained by outside reading. Class time may well be used to discuss relative merits of different processes for a given product, under a given set of conditions, or for designs used for an installation to manufacture a certain product, such designs to be criticized and discussed by the class. I put 6rst in importance teaching the student fundamentals; second, teaching him t o think. He will have t o do i t when he enters the factory. He should have the habit when he leaves school.
VOL. 7, No. 8
CHEMICAL DIGEST
1941
The course should awaken in him the ability t o use his leisure time pleasantly and agreeably in some way other than reading chemistry, the Saturday Evening Post, and the daily newspapers. There should be some place, however small, in his curriculum where he can a t least get a glimpse of some of the humanities, economics, sociology, law, literature, music, art, or whatnot. Let him not lose his ability t o become interested in something besides his profession. It will make him a better chemist, a more useful citizen. and a happier man.
R.M. P. X-Rays Lay Bare Secrets of Crystals. Because X-rays do not bend when they hit a solid object, but either pass straight through or stop dead, they have become one of the most important of the tools of modem physics, laying bare the secrets of crystals and shuwlng how atoms are arranxed in molcculcs. The usclulne~aof these invisible radiation? was discui~(.dr~.centlyin a radio talk, xivrn over the Columhia Broadca$tinq System under the auspices of Science Service, by Sir William H. B & ~ director ~ , of the Royal Institution of Great Britain and one of the world's leading physicists. Radio waves, light waves, and the waves of X-rays, Sir William reminded his hearers, are all members of the same family, so far as their fundamental nature is concerned. But radio waves will turn and bend and go around obstacles, while light and X-ray waves will not deviate from a straight line. "Light waves would be of no use if thev behaved like that." he continued. "If they did we should swim in a sea of Sight but i t would be much the same in all directions. from all the surroundine Whichever way we looked we should be receivillg- light - abiects: - . we should have to exercise care even t o sort out whether a thing was in front of us or behind. We must have light that turns corners as little as possible. Even in radio transmission when a so-called 'beam' is wantedray which will keep more or less straight without spreadingshort waves of twenfy or thirty meters only are employed. Now small details can only be kept distinct when the r a p of light from them keep very straight. For this reason there is a limit to the smallness of things that may be seen by the aid of ordinary light; not even with the aid of the microscope can that limit be overstepped. I n the same way i t might he possible to detect the presence of a mountain by its effect on radio transmission: but radio could not be used to find a house or a tree. "But the X-rays enable us to see, if I may use the word, what light cannot show us. Of course, we have to replace our eyes by specially made instruments. And when we use the X-rays we find oruselves in a new world which is always about us, which has to do with the structures of ourselves and all our surroundings, and with the way in which those structures are fitted for their work; this new world has hitherto been hidden from us. "First of all, we are struck with the constant tendency in Nature to arrange in order the atoms of which all things are made. The carbon atoms which make up the diamond are arranged in a beautifully simple pattern, one of the most regular of all the patterns we find in crystals; and no doubt we have here the reason why the diamond is so hard. When it is rubbed against other substances in which the forces that tie the atoms together are less strongly and systematically combined, it is the atoms of the second substance that must shift, while the diamond remains unchanged. "With the aid of the X-rays we can peer down into the pattern of the ice crystal, so fine in detail as t o be far beyond the power d light to examine; and we see the atoms of oxygen and hydrogen arranging themselves to make six-sided figures which, when multiplied enormously, make the crystals of snow and ice with which we are familiar."Science Sennennce '
