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JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
a text is used as the basis for the assignment of lessons, then the fundamentals receive too scant attention. Where the text is regarded as a source book and the lessons are assigned on the basis of wellordered units of the fundamentals the above difficulty does not appear but this plan seems as yet to be used by a minority of teachers. We hope that this book will be an incentive t o teachers of chemistry t o leave their "low-vaulted past" and occupy the wider horizons of science which the use of the scientific method is sure to create. Extended drill, however, can confuse as well as clarify. A book is only a tool to be used for good or ill as the teacher may select. Only when the details are used as steps to lift the student t o the heights of understanding of a general principle may the teacher's work be said t o be well done. HERBERTR. SMITH HICASCHOOL C A T C ~ OILL~NOIS O.
L*KB VlBW
The Twentieth Century Practice-Exercises and Objective Tests in Chemistry., G. M. BRADBURY,Lakewood High School, Lakewood, Ohio, and M. V. MCGILL,Lorain High School, Lorain, Ohio. Benton Review Shop, Fowler, Indiana, 1931. 132 pp. Paper cover, staple bound. 15.5 X 23.5cm. %$net. One of the weakest points in the teaching of chemistry in secondary schools is the lack of practice and drill t o secure the necessary understanding. This booklet aims to supply this need by stated exercises arranged in thirty-two units which are studied with reference t o the usual stereotyped textbook. Each unit closes with a test of fill in blank word. true-false, or selective answer type. The formation of such a practice hook evidently is the result of the unsatisfactory use of a test book as such. It is apparent that the pupil must meet the challenge of the exercises by a consideration of the information of the text and in this respect a decided value is furnished which the average book does not have.
JANUARY,
1932
If such exercises were incorporated a t the close of chapters of the text i t would take on the nature of a workbook and would not be usable the second time, except by the somnolent type of pupil who desires above everything a short cut in personal effort. This addition 01 another book to the pupil load may justify the expense, even if i t is only a half-step breakaway from an outworn form of instruction. We must a t least grant that the authors have the courage t o put their convictions into an improvement in printed form. It happens in places that there is no treatment of a certain topic in the book which the pupil may be using, so this information must be sought elsewhere or omitted. The difficulty lies in trying to integrate the topics of several books into one practice book. If we were willing to allow textbooks to take their silent places in the museums and in their place evolve a course of fundamentals based on laboratory practice with historical values supplied concurrently, we might approach more nearly a perfect method for it would embody the eleme& of the scientific method. At any rate the use of this practice book will cause much more brain searching than the separate use of a teat so we can see real education promoted. If the teacher will be careful to point out the mountain peaks of principle which are encountered in the study of chemistry the final result cannot be other than satisfactory. HERBERTR. SMITH LAKBV n w Hrca SCHOOL CAIC*.~,I L L ~ N O ~ S
Recent Advances in Organic Chemistry. ALFREDW. STEWART, D.Sc., Professor of Chemistry in the Queen's University, Belfast. Sixth edition. Longmans. Green & Co., New York c i t y and 429, xii London, 1931, 2 vols. xii 431 pp. $7.50 each volume.
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The popularity of this standard book with organic chemists is attested by the fact that five editions have been sold,
