General Education in Science [Reprint 2013 ed.] 9780674283596, 9780674282988

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General Education in Science

General Education in Science % % EDITED

BY

I. B E R N A R D C O H E N AND F L E T C H E R G. W A T S O N

WITH A FOREWORD BY JAMES BRYANT CONANT

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge,

Massachusetts 19 5 2

Copyright 1952 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

Distributed in Great Britain by Geoffrey Cumberlege Oxford University Press London

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 52-5026 Printed in the United States of America

Preface he papers contained in this volume were originally presented at the Workshop in Science in General Education, held at the Harvard Summer School in July 1950. This Workshop grew out of a pair of meetings organized by President James B. Conant of Harvard, Dean Sidney B. French of Colgate, and Dean Hugh Stott Taylor of Princeton; the first was held at Princeton in the spring of 1948 and the second at Harvard in the summer of 1949. The Workshop at which these papers were presented was attended by teachers of the sciences in colleges and secondary schools from all parts of the country. Each session was followed by an active discussion on the part of members of the Workshop, whose questions and remarks were not confined to the topics presented by the principal speakers, but embraced many additional aspects of science teaching and its place in the General Education programs in our colleges. The liveliness of these discussions was a token of the as yet unsolved problems of teaching science to students who do not plan to become scientists. The development of General Education programs in the colleges has not followed a uniform pattern. The particular form that General Education takes in any college not only reflects the educational policy of the institution but also depends on the interests and personality of the teachers who give the courses. The following papers will make it clear that there are many approaches to General Education in the sciences.

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The book contains many allusions to the General Education courses in science currently being offered at Harvard, and some

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comment about them may be helpful. The reader should keep in mind that this General Education program is intended to provide a degree of unity among the courses required of all students for "distribution" greater than that attainable under the old system. The present graduation requirement is that a student must take at least six courses outside the area of his concentration. ( Students entering in the fall of 1951 must take 16& courses in order to be graduated, of which one half course is a General Education course in English Composition). In each of the three major areas—the Humanities, the Natural Sciences, the Social Sciences—General Education courses are provided. All students except those who in their first two years plan to take three science courses with laboratory must take one course in each of these three areas during those two years, but within each of these areas a number of different courses are provided. In the area of the Natural Sciences, five introductory courses are available: four in the Physical Sciences and one in the Biological Sciences. The choice of course depends somewhat upon the previous science instruction and apparent mathematical aptitude of the student, and also upon his interests and inclinations. The offering of several parallel courses provides a choice among course emphases and instructors. The variety of materials and techniques used by the several instructors in attempting to reach a more or less common set of educational goals will be apparent from their contributions to this book. The following abbreviated catalogue descriptions are extracted from "Courses in General Education 1950-51," a part of the Official Register of Harvard University. 1, The Physical Sciences in a Technical Civilization (P. Le Corbeiller): This course is designed for students having little scientific preparation and desiring to obtain a background for the understanding of our technical civilization. The first term considers aspects of physics, chemistry, and geology which are involved in the production and transmission of power: simple machines, liquids and gases, heat, eleNATURAL SCIENCES

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ments of general chemistry, geology of coal and oil; the steam engine and the automobile engine; principles of electric motors and generators. In the second term the principal subjects include: falling bodies, Newton's laws, circular motion, the solar system, universal gravitation, electronic physics, atomic structure and the periodic table, elements of nuclear physics. N A T U R A L S C I E N C E S 2 , Principles of Physical Science ( E . C . Kemble and G. J . Holton) : This course is designed for students who have had high-school physics, but who do not expect to specialize in physical science.

Students who have not passed a course in high-school physics toiU be admitted only by special permission.

The course traces the development of the more important concepts and laws of physical science from Babylonian astronomy to the nuclear chain reaction. The topics are taken to a large extent from physics, but include portions of astronomy, chemistry, and geology. The work of the first term is concerned primarily with the historical development of our ideas regarding the solar system and of the mechanical theory of Newton. It includes a discussion of the impact of scientific ideas on philosophy and the social order in the 17th and 18th centuries. There are brief chapters on geology and the study of heat. The work in the second term is less historical and focuses on the problem of the structure of matter. The topics include elementary concepts in chemistry, cathode rays, positive rays, and the atomicity of electricity; the paradox of the wave and corpuscle properties of light and x-rays; quantum properties of matter; radioactivity and nuclear transformations. Prerequisites: A working knowledge of high-school physics and elementary high-school algebra. N A T U B A L SCIENCES 3, The Nature and Growth of the Physical Sciences (I. B. Cohen) : This course is designed for students planning to concentrate in the humanities or the social sciences, who have little scientific preparation. It aims at elucidating the nature and growth of some of the major concepts, laws, and theories by which physical scientists explain the phenomena of the external world. Each topic is introduced in its historical setting; and the development of the scientific enterprise and the impact of the great scientific ideas on the main streams of thought (reflected in philosophy, literature, general history) are indicated. Stress is placed upon the experimental foundations of scientific knowledge, the relation between observed data and theoreti-

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cal concepts, and the development of experimental techniques. The main topics include: growth of our knowledge of the solar system; elements of terrestrial and celestial mechanics; theories of light and spectroscopy; electrostatics; basic principles of chemistry; structure of the atom; elements of quantum theory; radioactivity and simple nuclear reactions. Reading is assigned in the original writings of the great scientists, as well as in books devoted to the history of science, intellectual history, the effects of scientific discoveries on society, and biographies of scientists. 4. Research Patterns in Physical Science (L. K. Nash and T. S. K u h n * ) : This course is intended to acquaint students who will not concentrate in physical science with the manipulative and intellectual procedures of the working scientist. These are displayed through detailed historical and technical study of selected investigations of the physical world. Each of these case studies is directed primarily to the discovery of those factors which determined the productivity of the investigation; the creative interactions of scientific, social, and philosophical activities provide a secondary theme. No comprehensive survey of the technical products of scientific activity is attempted, but students are expected to master technical and mathematical materials to the extent that these are necessary for an understanding of the case histories. The prerequisite is a course in physics, or in chemistry, or in general science with emphasis on physics or chemistry, taken in secondary school. N A T U R A L SCIENCES

5, Principles of Biological Science ( E . S . Castle and G. E. Erikson) : This course assumes no previous study of biology, and is topical in plan rather than being built around a study of the history of science. It deals with selected aspects of biological science which contribute to the understanding of living organisms generally, of man as a biological entity, and of his place in nature. Very broadly these aspects include: the nature of living things; the mechanisms of life of animals and plants; the continuity and diversification of life; the interrelations of organisms with one another; and the biological foundations of behavior. Systematic coverage of the whole range of subject matter of plant and animal science is not attempted, but the course does explore, at times in detail, the basic facts, principles, and implications of the topics chosen for study. By this means it aims to NATURAL SCIENCES

* This course was organized by President Conant and was formerly taught by him.

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convey understanding of some of the larger problems and achievements of biological science, and of their relation to other fields of knowledge and experience. As mentioned above, students at Harvard normally take during their first two years one introductory General Education course in each of the three areas: the Humanities, the Natural Sciences, and the Social Sciences. As upperclassmen, they must take three additional courses outside their area of concentration. As a means of meeting this requirement, some "Second Level" General Education courses are available. Those in the area of the Natural Sciences, offered during 1950-51, are described below: all of them are half courses of one semester's duration. Organic Evolution ( A . S . Romer and members of the Department of Biology) : The course is mainly concerned with the principles and theories underlying organic evolution. No attempt is made to trace in detail the evolution of the various plant and animal groups, although material illustrative of general principles is drawn from a variety of sources. A majority of the lectures are given by specialists in various fields of botany, zoology, physiology, and paleontology. Topics include ( 1 ) a brief résumé of the history of evolutionary thought, ( 2 ) the genetic background, ( 3 ) a critique of theories of evolution, ( 4 ) current concepts, ( 5 ) examples of evolutionary history drawn from various biological fields. N A T U R A L SCIENCES 1 1 1 ,

S C I E N C E S 1 1 2 , Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (P. Frank): Topics treated in this course include: the relation between science and philosophy (metaphysical, positivistic, and intermediate views); the evolution of our picture of the physical world (organismic and mechanistic science); analysis of our actual physical science; the role of experience, logical thinking, and free imagination in physics. In particular, geometry and mechanics are discussed as examples, with special emphasis on the distinction between the empirical facts and the language by which those facts are described. Some attention is given to the sociology of science. N A T U R A L S C I E N C E S 113, Contemporary Physics and Its Philosophical Interpretations (P. Frank): The basic ideas of 20th-century physics (relativity theory, quantum NATURAL

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theory, atomic and nuclear physics) are presented in an elementary way with emphasis on the contributions they can make toward the solution of philosophic questions, such as the nature of time, space, and matter, determinism and indeterminism, causal law and statistical law, etc. The role of modern physics in the conflict between philosophic creeds like materialism, idealism, pragmatism, etc., is treated, as are relations between scientific theories and political ideologies. N A T U R A L S C I E N C E S 1 1 4 , Human Behavior ( B . F . Skinner): This course presents a critical review of current treatments of human behavior in such fields as government, education, religion, law, and therapy, with a survey of scientific knowledge relevant to the practical prediction and control of behavior. The course is intended for students concentrating in other fields who wish to gain some experience with a scientific point of view toward human behavior. Although not in the area of the Natural Sciences, the following second-level General Education course is of related interest. S C I E N C E S 113, The Impact of Science on Modern Life (K. F. Mather): This course is concerned primarily with the relations between the social and economic aspects of modern life and the increase in scientific knowledge and its technologic application. Portions of the subject matter are presented by guest speakers from outside the University, as well as by members of the several Harvard faculties. Included in the subject matter is a critical examination of the function of science in society and its implications for human welfare in the social transformations of the 20th century. Attention is given to the scientific principles underlying the recent developments in industry, commerce, communications, and human relations, with the aim of discovering the limitations as well as the potential contributions of science in the service of man. The fundamental relations between man and his physical and biological environment are stressed, as the responsibilities of science are examined. Among the topics considered are the effects of obsolescence of older techniques and of the application of new inventions and labor-saving devices, the relation between the new avenues of communication and the mental processes of the citizen, the increase of specialization and concentrated power with their concomitant limitations upon human freedom, the organization of pure and applied research with special reference to the social and political conditions conducive to scientific progress, and the SOCIAL

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changes in international relations resulting from the new techniques available for either war or peace. The editors wish to express their gratitude to the Carnegie Corporation of New York for generous support of the Workshop in Science in General Education. This support, in addition to making it possible to invite the principal speakers, made available a large number of scholarships so that we could bring to Cambridge many teachers from distant parts of the country who could not otherwise have attended. I . BERNABÒ COHEN FLETCHER G . WATSON

FOREWORD

e live in an age of experts. As a consequence, one of our many problems is how to provide a basis for appraising the expert and his advice. Within certain limits, of course, we must trust to his expert opinion, but experience shows that these limits are often narrow. Even in the area of the applied physical sciences (which are usually considered to be the most exact), a group of experts may differ as to the feasibility of a proposed course of action. A business executive or a government official seeking advice on whether or not to make a capital expenditure for a new type of machinery or equipment is often confronted by conflicting opinions from competent engineers. The more novel the proposal, the more likelihood there is of differences of opinion. How is he to evaluate the contradictory views? Surely not by trying to become an expert himself, but rather by calling in someone who over the years has time and again faced such problems and learned how to elicit by careful examination the premises both explicit and hidden in the argument of each adviser and who knows how to obtain information about the past reliability of each expert's prognosis. Such a person might be called an expert on judging experts. Within the field of his experience he would understand the modern world; in short, he would be well educated in applied science, though his factual knowledge of mechanical or electrical or chemical engineering might be relatively slight. He would be able to communicate intelligently with men who were advancing science and applying it, at least within certain boundaries. The wider his experience, the greater would be his scientific literacy. For what blocks the inexperienced person who attempts to examine critically proposals advanced by scientific experts is his ignorance of the way such experts think and talk.

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Formal education can be only a first step in reducing ignorance and illiteracy. This is one of the few general propositions to which all teachers over the last few hundred years would probably have agreed. A major educational problem that now confronts those concerned with teaching science is how to start the student down a road that will insure his arriving at some degree of scientific literacy even though he devotes his college years to the study of some nonscientific subject. This is the problem to which the papers collected in this volume are primarily addressed. It is part of a far larger problem that has attracted a great deal of attention in the United States in the last dozen years. I would venture to designate it as the problem of initiating educational processes by which twentieth-century experts can eventually understand and communicate with each other. The more familiar designation is "General Education at the College Level." Faith in the value of general education as thus defined is now fairly widespread among college teachers in the United States (though as to methods of attaining the objective there is widespread disagreement). Yet it is well to remember that only on the continent of North America is it believed by English-speaking peoples that some formal educational exposure to the natural sciences beyond the age of eighteen is desirable for the future man of affairs or lawyer or social scientist or humanist. And correspondingly, outside of the United States and Canada it is rare for the future scientist, engineer, or doctor to undertake after the age of seventeen any formal study of the social sciences or the humanities. Possibly American educators are naïve in their beliefs as to the value of a general education at the college level, but I would submit that by experimenting with various types of college courses we have been attempting to find the modern equivalent of the kind of liberal education that was once the product of "the collegiate way of life." This was the ideal of the founders of the first colleges in colonial days. When literacy could be defined only in terms of languages, literature, and history, the task of a college

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was relatively easy. The "education around the dinner table" could, even in the nineteenth century, supply the breadth of view we now must seek through more formal means. In England even a generation ago a few educational centers with well-endowed residential colleges could enroll a majority of students from homes well stocked with books. Today, however, I doubt whether anywhere in the world the mere device of collegiate living ( excellent though such a way of life may still be for young men with intellectual ambitions ) suffices to provide the beginnings of a general education. The cultural background of the students is too diverse, the impact of modern science and scholarship has been far too great. These two factors have required a reëxamination of the older concepts of a liberal education. And in no field is this reexamination more necessary than in the natural sciences. Having once declared one's faith in the significance of the American approach to general education, the candid educator must admit the enormous difficulties of the task. This is well illustrated by the present volume. The views presented are almost as numerous as the authors. For this reason this collection of papers should be of interest to college teachers and administrators whatever may be their own views on these controversial matters. Upon only one point can we all agree, namely, the importance of the undertaking. All who accept this premise must be grateful to those who are actively engaged in the collegiate teaching of science as part of a general education; and particularly grateful to the group of teachers who have taken the time and trouble to present their views to a larger audience—the readers of this book. J a m e s B.

Conant

Contents Science for the Nonscientist S C I E N C E AND T H E LAYMAN René J. Dubos · Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research 3 GENERAL EDUCATION AND S P E C I A L EDUCATION IN T H E S C I E N C E S Sidney J. French · Colgate University

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T H E ASSIMILATION OF S C I E N C E INTO GENERAL EDUCATION Paul B. Sears · Yale University

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The Philosophy of Science and the Teaching of Science T H E R O L E OF PHILOSOPHY IN A GENERAL E D U C A T I O N COURSE IN PHYSICAL S C I E N C E Edwin C. Kemble · Harvard University

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WHAT TEACHERS OF GENERAL EDUCATION COURSES IN T H E S C I E N C E S SHOULD KNOW ABOUT PHILOSOPHY PhOipp Frank · Harvard University

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The History of Science and the Teaching of Science T H E HISTORY OF S C I E N C E AND T H E TEACHING OF S C I E N C E I. Bernard Cohen · Harvard University

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T H E USE OF H I S T O R I C A L CASES IN S C I E N C E TEACHING Leonard K. Nash · Harvard University

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ACQUIRING A K N O W L E D G E OF T H E HISTORY OF S C I E N C E Frederick G. Kilgour · Yale University

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The Sciences in a Technical Civilization APPLICATIONS OF S C I E N C E AND THE TEACHING OF S C I E N C E Philippe Le Corbeiller · Harvard University

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WHAT T H E LAYMAN NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT S C I E N C E S. A. Goudsmit · Brookhaven National Laboratory

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EDUCATION FOR C I T I Z E N S H I P IN A TECHNICAL CIVILIZATION Edward C. Fuller · Champlain College, State University of New York

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Some Problems in the Teaching of Biology AN APPROACH TO THE TEACHING OF BIOLOGY TO N O N S C I E N T I S T S Edward S. Castle · Harvard University

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THE GENERAL EDUCATION COURSE IN BIOLOGY: LABORATORY WORK AND GENERAL O B J E C T I V E S George E. Erikson · Harvard University

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The Evaluation Problem CAN GENERAL EDUCATION COURSES IN THE S C I E N C E S B E EVALUATED? Henry S. Dyer · Harvard University

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WHAT T H E I N S T R U C T O R CAN DO ABOUT EVALUATION: T E C H N I Q U E S AND EXAMPLES Fletcher G. Watson · Harvard University

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Science for the Nonscientist

S C I E N C E A N D THE L A Y M A N René J. Dubos

veryone is convinced of the importance of science in our society—for good or for evil. But few are those who consider scientific matters sufficiently entertaining to devote to them any time or effort beyond that required to satisfy a sense of duty. This statement, I believe, applies to scientific workers as well as to the lay public. Truly enough, many scientists display amazing devotion to the understanding and promotion of their chosen area of learning, as does almost any man in his own field of activity. But like other men, scientists are prone to be indifferent to science as a whole. They are laymen except within their own specialty, and when they move out of their professional channels, they join the general public in looking outside of science for intellectual adventure and entertainment.

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In reality, scientists, like the general public, are not much interested in what other scientists do. It is in this distinction between science and the professional activities of scientists that I find a key to the formulation of a program for the scientific education of the public. Judging from the frequency of topics of conversation, the number and success of books for the general reader, the attendance at public lectures, it appears obvious that the plastic arts, music, literature, philosophy, politics, economics, and so forth, have a far wider human appeal than do scientific problems. But this may not be a fair measure for comparing public interest in science and in other intellectual disciplines. It is true that most men shy from any effort at understanding scientific concepts,

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facts, and processes and that, of all the products of science, they know almost exclusively those that affect their well-being and social advancement. But is this true only of science? Our concert halls are crowded, and the doings of orchestra leaders are likely to reach the front pages of the newspapers. According to such criteria, the educated public is music-minded, but who except practicing musicians gives much thought to the operation of musical instruments, the theory of acoustics or of harmony? Among the countless visitors to our art galleries who admire ancient rugs and tapestries, how many inquire concerning the techniques of weaving and the nature and properties of dyes? There is an almost universal interest in oil painting, but does this mean that those who flock to exhibits concern themselves with the reasons why so many early nineteenth-century canvases have turned dull brown, whereas the Renaissance still reaches us with its heavenly blues, brilliant greens, and burning scarlets? Who makes the effort to learn from Leonardo the precise knowledge of perspective and anatomy that he incorporated in drawings and paintings familiar to millions all over the world? Clearly it is in the products of art, just as in the products of science, that the public is interested, and books on the history of the arts achieve popular success only to the extent that they deal with romantic and, if possible, spicy events in the lives of artists. Nor is the widespread interest in political or economic history of a different order. The French dominance over Europe during the eighteenth century, the rise of England to economic supremacy a few decades later, the concentration of gold in Fort Knox, the devaluation of sterling and the ruble in 1949—these make lively topics of conversation in almost any group of educated persons. But who except a few highly trained historians and economists would listen to a lecturer intent on imparting precise knowledge of the laws affecting the growth and decline of populations, of the technological factors involved in the discovery and utilization of new sources of energy or raw materials, of the intricacies of the problems of currency and exchange? Here again, it is in

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the final events of history, the results of economic forces, that the public is interested—and even then, chiefly in those that have a fairly direct bearing on personal experience or matters of everyday life. Any program aimed at fostering a general interest in science among the public at large must recognize that we have no right to expect others to be interested in the tricks of our specialized trades. We must learn to present to the public those aspects of our activities that possess broad human values. Fortunately, science is much more than a provider of new gadgets and new goods; it can enrich life with new esthetic and emotional experience, with broader understanding, with stimulating and rewarding mental experiences. Indeed, history gives clear evidence that on several occasions and in many countries gifted individuals have successfully competed with musicians, poets, dramatists, and even politicians in drawing the attention of the public to the broad aspects of scientific thought and life. The tradition had begun with Fontenelle in 1686. His Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds presented in precise and sparkling language, for the education and entertainment of refined and powdered marchionesses, the principles of Copernican astronomy and the discoveries of Galileo. The Letters to a German Princess, written in the eighteenth century by Leonhard Euler, was reprinted thirty-five times in nine different languages from 1768 to 1858. The revolution in astronomy had made all thinking people aware of the fact that the earth was only one among many similar celestial bodies and stimulated widespread curiosity concerning the place of man in the physical universe. As knowledge accumulated, it became more and more apparent to curious minds that many unexpected and often beautiful natural phenomena were revealed by scientific experimentation. Voltaire translated Newton for his French public and took pride in demonstrating to his guests the decomposition of light into its spectrum of colors. The experiments of Galvani and Volta on

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electricity, and the effects of electric currents on muscle contraction became subjects of entertainment in European salons and courts; even Napoleon I found time to take interest in them. By 1800, economists and statesmen were becoming aware of the fact that science was not only interesting but also of great importance in the practical affairs of man. Knowledge was becoming power, and the Royal Institution in London made it its purpose to present to fashionable society, as well as to humble people, the theory and practical potentialities of scientific knowledge. Throughout the nineteenth century, all over Europe and in North America, books, lectures, experimental demonstrations—many of them presented by the most eminent men of science—introduced to wide, nonspecialized audiences the principles, the facts, the achievements, and the hopes of experimental science. For a while it looked as if science would become a normal part of the intellectual activities of all thinking men and women, would indeed compete with the arts and literature for a place in the life of fashionable society. These statements are not intended to give the illusion that the appreciation and understanding of science were common characteristics of the centuries preceding our own. They are made only to illustrate the fact that even at its highest intellectual level science can be presented in such a manner as to appeal to the nonscientist. Why, then, has public interest in science waned and almost disappeared during recent decades? A precise answer to this question would probably be useful in planning a course of action to recapture the interest of the public in scientific matters. But, unfortunately, historians tell us little regarding this problem, and in the absence of factual information we must be satisfied with somewhat speculative hypotheses to guide our thoughts. One of the first effects of the scientific renaissance was to help free the minds of men from fears of demons and from belief in various forms of witchcraft. In addition, it gave to many the

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hope—indeed, the faith—that the world was not incomprehensible and that a day would come when the meaning of life and the place of man in the universe would no longer be mysteries haunting the human mind. Beginning with the eighteenth century, there had been a widespread hope that positive knowledge would provide a final understanding of reality that in turn could be the basis for a man-made rational code of ethics capable of filling the role formerly played by revealed religions in human behavior. But, as the nineteenth century came to an end, most philosophers and scientists began to lose the hope that experimental science could ever unravel the riddle of the universe. It could at most, they felt, describe natural events with some accuracy and establish relations between them. This knowledge was sufficient to allow some prediction of phenomena and to give man considerable control over nature. But this was a far cry from the larger hopes of positivist philosophy and did not reveal anything of the ultimate nature of the universe and of life. The disenchantment soon found expression among philosophers and novelists who proclaimed to the public the bankruptcy of science. A whole generation listened to Anatole France sneer through his mouthpiece, the wise Jérôme Coignard, "I despise science, my son, from having loved her too much, like those disappointed voluptuaries who reproach women for having failed to give them the satisfactions of which they had dreamed." The philosopher Renan symbolized the scientific faith of his generation in The Future of Science, written in 1848 when he was twenty-five years old; but when in 1890 he published this book it was with a skeptical and disenchanted preface in which he said, "Science protects us from error rather than revealing to us the truth, but there is at least some satisfaction in not being fooled." Some fifty years afterward, Chancellor Kemp Smith of Edinburgh University echoed these remarks in his inaugural address: "The history of human intelligence is a record, not so much of the progressive discovery of truth, as of our gradual emancipation from error."

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Scientists themselves had lost the illusion that they were about to come to grips with the ultimate nature of reality. At the end of an immensely successful life, Lord Kelvin told rather forlornly how sadness over the failure to solve the philosophical questions raised by science is relieved by the satisfactions of the daily work. "Something of sadness must come of failure; but in the pursuit of science inborn necessity to make the effort brings with it much of the certaminis gaudia and saves the naturalist from being wholly miserable, perhaps even allows him to be fairly happy in his daily work." Aware of this disenchantment, the general public threw overboard all interest in science, along with the illusions concerning an early solution of philosophical problems. The practicing scientists, in the meantime, were becoming more and more keenly interested in the enormous power that scientific knowledge put in their hands for the control of nature. Doing things with science appeared to them more important than understanding the world. The hope that the growth of technology would improve the lot of man on earth fostered devotion to the practical aspects of science. And even if that hope should ever fail the laboratory man, there remained to him the enjoyment of search and the intoxication of discovery—or even more simply, the humble pleasures of the daily work well done. Thus did the scientist, who throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and much of the nineteenth century had been proud to be called a natural philosopher, become a specialized technician with hardly any intellectual contact with the public or, indeed, with his colleagues specializing in other fields of science. And thus began, I believe, the estrangement that still exists. It need not be concluded, however, that this estrangement was inevitable or is final. For even though science cannot promise an immediate answer to philosophical queries, it can enrich life, not only by contributing to the mastery of nature, but also by providing emotional and intellectual values that increase the flavor and dignity of human existence.

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It should be fairly easy, for example, to help modern man rediscover the simple, esthetic pleasures that can be derived from the natural phenomena revealed in observation and experiment —the childlike wonderment with which the eighteenth-century salons marveled at the display of colors produced by Newton's prisms. The majestic galaxies photographed through the great telescopes; the exquisite geometric forms of crystalline patterns; the organization of muscle fibers revealed by electron microscopy —each of these phenomena revealed by recent science equals or surpasses in sheer beauty the dramatic spectacles or artistic creations that men travel far and wide to admire. Science can also provide to the human heart and imagination new sources of poetic inspiration. The small Olympus of the ancients, or the Christian heaven, do not compare in poetic grandeur with the space-time immensities of modern physics. Does not the sky overhead appear more majestic, when known to exhibit the interplay of gigantic forces between celestial bodies across light-years of space, than when seen as populated by capricious gods playing tricks on each other? One's mystic sense of participation in the unity and rhythms of nature, given in the rites of spring or in the moods of autumn, can become more subtle with the knowledge that all living matter goes through an endless cycle—from minerals of the earth and gases of the atmosphere, to the organic stuff of plants and animals, and again from these last, as dead protoplasm, into the new life of a teeming microbial population, before their return to ashes and to air. In addition to its esthetic and poetic values, science can contribute to the world endless intellectual adventure. There is lively entertainment in the odd, unexpected facts that the scientific observer keeps on discovering, and there are pleasures of an even higher quality in becoming aware of the extraordinary fitness that is evidenced in the successful experiments of nature —the morphology of the chemical molecule and its specific activities; the exquisite adaptation between variations in temperature and illumination at the different seasons of the year, and the

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flowering of plants or the migration of birds; the intimate complementarity of the anatomy of flowers and insects in the phenomenon of pollination. Science thus can be for everyone a source of profound intellectual pleasure by gratifying the human hunger for orderliness and for explanation, even when the explanation is of a temporary and limited character. Beyond the esthetic, emotional, and intellectual satisfactions provided by an acquaintance with scientific knowledge, there is naturally the fact that some familiarity with the processes of science helps the citizen in becoming a more effective member of democratic society. To achieve this end, the citizen need not and of course cannot become himself a trained, operating scientist; it is sufficient that he should have some concept of the management of scientific problems. It is only during recent decades that the utilization of science for the purposes of society has been organized on a systematic basis, and for this reason there is still much that is unclear about the relations between the scientist, the individual citizen, and society as a whole. But general principles are emerging that are of obvious interest and importance for all thinking men. The distant and general targets at which science should aim—philosophical understanding, beauty and happiness of life, power over nature and over other m e n have yet to be defined in terms of social ethics and are still, at the present time, largely matters of sentiment. But past experience is becoming sufficient to allow most scientists to agree, if only in general terms, on the most effective way to reach whatever goals are set. The time has come when laymen should be made aware of the several phases of work that constitute the complex process of science. First comes the phase during which are made the original discoveries of new—usually unexpected—facts, laws, or substances. To a large extent, this phase is unpredictable in its occurrence and its course. It can be planned and helped only to the extent that society is willing to provide adequate opportunities so that

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a sufficient number of individuals are able to follow their hunches and open untrodden paths. Knowledge of a certain body of initially isolated facts and relations may make possible the formulation of laws and the prediction of new facts and permit the rational development of scientific doctrines and disciplines. This is the stage at which teams of laboratory specialists, working in collaboration toward a common goal, are usually most effective. Extensive scientific information in any field makes it almost inevitable that certain definite conclusions can be reached and that some practical applications can be made. But this last phase is often laborious and expensive and demands enormous resources and thorough organization. Fortunately, several important examples are now available where the scientific process has run its complete course—from the fanciful imaginings of some lonely observer, through the systematic and thorough investigation by groups of highly trained theoretical scientists, to the efficient exploitation of theoretical knowledge by practical businessmen or statesmen. Examples of this general process can be found in all fields of science: from seeking the origin of the mysterious glow that led to the discovery of radium, through the abstract concepts of atomic structure, to the release of nuclear energy; from observations of the colors of peas in a monastic garden, through the science of genetics, to the improvement of farm crops; from crude observations of naturalists on the antagonisms between different forms of life to the industrial production of drugs for the control of disease. Sketchy as this picture of the scientific process is, it clearly suggests that the production and exploitation of science involve the participation of several very different types of men. The natural history of the scientist himself has not yet been well studied. Best known is the division of scientists into two types: the

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romanticist and the classicist. This oversimplified analysis has, at least, the merit of symbolizing the fact that scientific creation can be motivated and directed by all the varieties of urges, emotions, and rational processes that are involved in other human activities. Psychological traits—normal, abnormal, or even psychopathic; influences of the environment—material necessities or abundances as well as the intellectual climate; the different forms of vanity—personal, national, religious, or racial; all these factors and many others affect qualitatively and quantitatively the performance of scientists. There must be, certainly, a number of traits that are of special significance in stimulating and orienting scientific pursuit. Scientists like to claim as characteristic of their behavior an intense curiosity, an inclination to wonder at the mechanism of natural phenomena, a specially developed love of truth, and a willingness to submit to the authority of fact. But the extent to which these traits are correlated with devotion to the scientific way of life is still somewhat uncertain. In fact, it seems not unlikely that there have occurred during the past three centuries profound changes in the mental and emotional make-up of the average scientist. There was a time when science was a personal and often lonely venture, when the scientist could best be pictured as a natural philosopher, working alone in his workshop and meditating in the silence of his cabinet over the significance his findings might have for understanding the universe. To be a scientist demanded then many of the qualifications of the adventurer and the philosopher. Today the pursuit of science is often a gregarious activity, rewarded by adequate financial and social security. Society has enlisted the scientist as one of its tradesmen, and it expects of him that he observe, measure, and apply, but not that he philosophize. If the processes involved in scientific pursuit are so varied and the scientists so heterogeneous in their mental traits, can there be some uniform pattern characteristic of science? The uninterrupted success of the natural sciences in solving more and more

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theoretical and practical problems during the past three centuries makes it clear that there must be such a thing as "the scientific method," but what characterizes this method is far from clear. "Most people probably imagine," the English geneticist C. D. Darlington recently said, "that science advances like a steam roller, cracking its problems one by one with even and inexorable force . . . Science [actually] advances as though by the pulling out of a drawer which gives on one side only to jam on the other." It does not take much knowledge of history to render one aware of the "halting, complex, almost irrational dynamics of the evolution of rational scientific thought." It is difficult to define "the scientific method," partly for the simple reason that there is no one method. Each individual scientist proceeds according to the manner that best fits his particular gifts. All scientists, it is true, have in common the willingness to test whether their hypothesis fit the world of facts and to submit to the results of experimentation. But the verification of hypotheses is the easiest, and the least creative, phase of the scientific process. On the other hand, almost nothing is known of the faculties that endow certain individuals with the gift of formulating the successful and far-reaching hypotheses that lead to great discoveries. Of the scientific method, we understand only the most obvious and pedestrian components. Furthermore, any adequate definition of "the scientific method" should cover, not only the techniques for making discoveries, but also those needed for exploiting them. And this phase also requires qualities of a very different order, including in particular the ability to evaluate and utilize a variety of social factors. Thus, the complete scientific process demands many different types of operations involving the making of new observations, the formulation of working hypotheses, their testing, and their application to the world of practical affairs. The multiplicity of the steps involved in the growth of science does not suffice to account for the difficulty in defining the seien-

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tifie method. More important perhaps is the fact that the method is still in the process of development, and has not yet reached the stage where it can be described by a clear formula. True enough, the mental operations mentioned a few lines above present nothing unusual or obscure. Man has practiced them ever since he began his conscious life on earth. It was by formulating hypotheses—however crude—by verifying their corollaries, and by exploiting the consequences that he thought to his advantage that man succeeded long before the scientific era in achieving much understanding of, and mastery over, nature. But, granted that the scientific method in its rudimentary form is very ancient, there is no doubt that scientists have become more and more proficient in using it. By applying it to an ever-increasing variety of problems, they have developed a special know-how, a peculiar and almost subconscious skill, in approaching problems of which the solution is not apparent. One needs only to have watched a gifted investigator attack a new problem—work around it, work at it, smell it, so to speak—to realize the complex and varied attributes that are involved in the prosecution of really original scientific work. There are many excellent books describing the results of science, but none that succeeds in teaching how to do research. Some of the art may be learned by serving an apprenticeship with a master, but most of it must be rediscovered by the investigator himself out of his own gifts. It may be considered surprising that the scientific method can be used with success even though it has never been defined. And yet, it is probably true that in most creative activities definition is what is reached last. Definitions are of use in delimiting and transferring knowledge, but they play little part in advancing it. Experience also shows that definitions are rarely, if ever, permanent. Despite professors, textbooks, dictionaries, and academies, they must evolve to accommodate new information and changed points of view. The scientific method is not static. Scientists modify it continuously to meet the specific requirements of their problems and the limitations of their working

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tools. The method grows—becoming at the same time broader and more subtle—with the growth of science itself. The very vagueness of the words used by those who attempt to discuss the nature of the scientific method teaches a lesson of humility to the natural scientists. And, indeed, many of them— among them the greatest—have acknowledged that they have reached the solution of their problems without being very clearly conscious of the mental operations that guided them along the way. This uncertainty should serve as a warning to those who see the natural sciences from the outside and who are eager to apply forthwith "the scientific method" to their own fields of endeavor, under the illusion that they understand its mechanism. As was to be expected, the phenomenal achievements of the natural sciences have led many to believe that the scientific method should also be applied to the study of social problems. This is, unquestionably, a desirable goal, and it is the more essential, therefore, that every effort be made to analyze the workings of the various methods used so successfully in the natural sciences and to determine whether anything at all like them is applicable in fields other than those for which they have been devised. That the question is not a simple one is revealed by the behavior of experimental scientists who—however successful they may be in their own specialized area of work—in their private lives and in their social activities seem no wiser than laymen. Of one thing, however, we may be reasonably sure. If developed and applied in good faith, the methods called scientific are bound to lead to unexpected vistas and unpredictable solutions. Science, then, is incompatible with a static view of the universe, or of society. It is inevitably a revolutionary process. It should prepare the citizen, as well as the scientist, to be ever ready to change, to adapt himself to a new and let us hope better world. One of the main reasons for bringing all men, directly or indirectly, into the scientific venture is to make them participate in its never-ending revelation and creation of new experiences, perceptions, and hopes.

GENERAL EDUCATION AND SPECIAL

EDUCATION

IN THE S C I E N C E S Sidney J. French

he topic I have been asked to consider is broad enough to include almost anything remotely related to the area commonly called science teaching. In large measure, however, I would like to focus attention on that phase of the topic which deals with science education for the nonscientist and raise at once the fundamental question, "Why should we teach any science at all to the nonscientists?" Many people have lived, and are living, happy and successful lives without knowing anything about science or even about the repair of scientific gadgets. Many of these, indeed, are fine citizens, lawmakers, and top administrators of our great country. They can and do seek the advice of experts in science when such advice seems necessary, just as citizens may do in legal or medical matters. As a matter of fact a little knowledge of science may, like a little knowledge of medicine or of law, even seem a dangerous thing, if science is regarded primarily as a profession for experts. Furthermore, if we are merely trying to defend something in which we as science teachers have an interest—a highly vested interest—something for which we as a group have considerable enthusiasm, and feel, therefore, that others should be exposed to this same enthusiasm; if we are merely fighting to save a sacred cow which has not given the sweet milk we expected; if we are worshiping an image of fool's gold which, like the classics before it, has become badly tarnished and which we must now polish up again in an effort to dazzle the student— if these are our motives, we had better give up the fight. For if

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we are honest we must confess that science education, which once showed such great promise as a liberalizing study and a new highway to mental discipline, has become only a tortuous technical highway to specialization. Why, indeed, do we want to teach science, or teach about science, or the results of science, to the nonscientist? As teachers we have all witnessed the sad spectacle of students who through some arbitrary requirement or mistaken enthusiasm found themselves in a science course for which they developed loathing, contempt, or fear. We have even said, "Such students are not of college caliber, because they can't learn science." Yet they have gone on, many of them, to achieve great success both in college and in later life. Perhaps it was our science teaching that was at fault. Perhaps it was our platitudinous attitude about what science ought to do for students that was wrong. At least we have a strong moral responsibility to examine such possibilities and, beyond that, to raise the serious question of what kind of science, if any, should be taught to nonscientists. There is no need to rehearse in great detail what has happened to the teaching of science in the colleges during the past century. It parallels what has happened in other fields but, the natural sciences having a good head start over most of the social sciences, their teaching has gone its specialized way in considerably greater measure. Science is no longer the liberalizing study it once aspired to be. Here and there, through the sheer force of a great personality, it still retains vestiges of liberalism, but in the main the teaching of the sciences has been subjugated to the training of specialists. Without at the moment getting committed on the question of whether the kind of introductory science we now teach is good training even for prospective scientists, we can probably agree at least that it is not good education for the nonscientist. Since our current science courses are devoted to specialized training, teachers of science have, perforce, been trained to become specialists in training more specialists. We are in a vicious

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circle with no apparent escape short of a clean break. Indeed, one of the most important places to start in the improvement of science teaching is with the graduate education of prospective teachers of science as distinguished from the training of research scientists. But this is not the place for a prolonged discussion of that most vexing and complex problem. To return to the question, "Why teach science at all to the nonscientists?" we need to consider first what, if anything accrues to the student from studying science, what pleasures and cultural values may come from it, what disciplinary values, what citizenship values, what values of understanding. If we agree that certain of such values can and should be achieved or attempted we must still answer the question whether, in the crowded curriculum of today, these values are of sufficient merit to warrant the attempt to achieve them—or some of them— through the use of the materials and techniques of science. Can they, for instance, be achieved better in some other way? A reorientation of history teaching, for example, might achieve certain of these historically important values more effectively than could be done through the so-called science approach. Learning to think more clearly might well be developed in social rather than scientific situations and, indeed, such an approach has the distinct advantage of bringing into consciousness many of the factors we meet in daily living which are usually omitted in the restricted reasoning of science. We would probably agree that as intelligent citizens we ought to know something about health—both group and individual health. In this age of travel, some knowledge of geography, physiography, and our own natural environment as seen through nature study would enhance both our love of nature and our appreciation of the importance of conservation. I am by no means certain, however, that these are primary jobs for the colleges. Certainly the secondary schools should, and as best they can, carry a great part of this responsibility. They could well do more and do it better by substituting such work for their current pre-

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tentious specialized courses in science, which often ape the worst in the current college courses. At the college level we are faced with a multitude of possible objectives in general-education science teaching which, good as they may all be, tend to overwhelm us and through their multitude and variety defeat all efforts to make our science education either liberal or meaningful. We feel, for example, that students should understand scientific procedures, know about important conclusions, be able to repair simple scientific gadgets, comprehend the history of great advances, know what modern technology is doing, read intelligently about new discoveries, know the composition of plastics and synthetics, and so on through an interminable list. This plenitude of objectives creates a difficulty similar to that in which traditional science courses for specialists usually find themselves. As new knowledge and new theories are added they must be included in the elementary textbook, and we are forced more and more into a superficial "buckshot" approach in order to "cover the ground." Indeed, this curse of coverage is the factor that all too commonly defeats our efforts to make higher education liberalizing. It would be presumptuous for any one person to attempt a prescriptive definition of General Education—except for himself. When two or three educators are gathered together there will inevitably result two or three—or even more—definitions. However, we can probably agree on several basic tenets. First, General Education is not primarily concerned with organized sequential information as we usually think of it in a typical college course. Secondly, General Education has little concern with specialization. Thirdly, it is concerned with the improvement of citizen understanding and clearer thinking. If we accept these three principles we can approach the question, "Why teach science to nonscientists?" with a minimum of confusion concerning techniques, content, and outcomes. Is there anything unique in science that will contribute to better citizen understanding and clearer thinking? If so, what

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is it? Can it be abstracted from the total field of science and used as a possible basis for providing the content, techniques, and objectives of General Education science courses? In the search for such a common denominator we must rigidly exclude everything that does not contribute immediately to such ends, else we will find ourselves right back in the maze from which we started. Obviously, if we approach the problem in this way, the traditional boundaries that separate our several science disciplines have little meaning. If we should, however, decide that some one science discipline best provides the basic science content, we must be in a position to defend that choice as providing the unique medium through which we can best achieve the objectives of General Education, and not merely because we as specialists happen to like the subject. All of us know some great teachers who are vigorous defenders of the use of a single science discipline as the most suitable means of achieving General Education objectives in the sciences. I would be the last to say that they do not achieve them in considerable measure; nevertheless, it would seem that they are attempting to solve the problem backward. They choose a science discipline because they like it and then try to make it more palatable and meaningful for the student, instead of trying first to find out what it is in science that can and should be made meaningful. Their arguments often proceed somewhat as follows: A chemistry course is good for students who want to become chemists but not as good for others. We will, therefore, modify it in such a way that it will be good for both. Or the approach may be: We will give a separate chemistry course for the nonscientists that will emphasize the chemistry a citizen ought to know. (What chemistry should a citizen know? Who could agree on it?) Still a third approach is that of the standpatter: What is good for the prospective chemist is equally good for the nonscientist. It teaches him to think. Therefore, we will subject him to the same rigid discipline as that required for the chemist.

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From the second of these approaches have come such passing courses as "pandemic" chemistry, chemistry and civilization, chemistry for the citizen, and so on. At best such courses approach the problem backward—the modification of a discipline to make it more palatable to the nontechnically minded. It is too often a watered-down course which can be quickly shed by our typically well-waterproofed students. I have a profound respect for Professor Joel Hildebrand as scientist and teacher, and agree with much that he had to say in his recent excellent paper on "A Philosophy of Teaching," presented as the Remsen Lecture at Johns Hopkins in 1949.1 If anyone can do a job of making chemistry interesting and important to a nonscientist, I suspect he can. But I maintain that he, too, backs into the question when he assumes that chemistry, per se, is the best kind of science for the nonscientist, or that for such students it will do all the things he hopes and expects. The burden of proof is on him to show why the nonscientist should deal only with the particular modern concepts that constitute today's discipline of chemistry, and deal with them as a prospective scientist does. These concepts usually ignore the significant history that has gone before them; there is little basis for anything but blind acceptance and belief in what science has already ordained. As far as the student is concerned the modern concepts seem to have sprung into being full-blown. I am reminded of what Sir Henry Armstrong once said about Svante Arrhenius: "And Arrhenius said, 'Let there be ions,' and there were ions." True, the student is expected to apply such concepts to specific problems, but the inductive development of the concepts themselves is necessarily so foreshortened as to provide no basis for understanding their complex origins. The use, for example, of laboratory or paper problems in qualitative analysis to produce "thinking" seems to me a rather sterile way of approaching thinking for citizens and more on the order 1 J. R. Hildebrand, "A Philosophy of Teaching," J. Chem. Education 26, 450 (1949).

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of solving orthodox puzzles. The principles of procedure have been carefully learned, and the student then applies the proper tests in an appropriate sequence in an effort to get right answers. Challenging as this game may seem at the time, there remains little if any residue of permanent "thinking" value—only an interesting array of colors and precipitates. Professor Hildebrand has gone far toward making chemistry stimulating to the nonscientist, but it is questionable whether he achieves in any considerable measure the ends he seeks when he speaks of "presenting chemistry to students in such a way as to activate their minds, to stimulate them to develop some degree of skill to think and act scientifically." Surely, thinking and acting scientifically involve something more than the application of a learned set of principles to some carefully selected laboratory—or paper —problems, all of which have recognized right answers. Have we any evidence that through taking traditional basic science courses students learn to think and act scientifically? Have we not given lip service down through the ages to something we have never proved? Have we not in this very process failed to approach in a scientific manner the problem of trying to teach students to think? In view of the accumulated evidence that we have not done the job we once hoped might be accomplished through traditional science courses, isn't it high time to take a fresh look at this very basic question? Professor Hildebrand takes a dim view of so-called generaleducation courses in science—and so would I if I had to think of them in his terms as "brief excerpts from a variety of sciences." He goes on to say that there is a profound difference between knowing some elementary facts about a variety of sciences and knowing what science itself is about. It is the difference between the upstart "general education" and the old and respectable liberal education. The former is often spoken of as if it were merely an improved version of the latter, but judging from some of the curricula designed to impart it, it is a collection of miscellaneous and necessarily superficial knowledge which is to be poured into a

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student usually within two years, after which he is "generally educated" and can either leave college or specialize.

"Liberal education," he adds, "is concerned primarily not with facts but with ideas. The liberally educated person is marked not by what he knows but by how, and how often he thinks, and the liberalizing process accordingly should involve a generous amount of thinking." Delightfully and provocatively as Professor Hildebrand writes, it seems necessary to take issue with him. Probably there are few who will today accept his definition of General Education. It might have been nearer the truth twenty years ago when the survey courses which he describes, and labels "General Education," were in their own feeble way attempting to breach traditional liberal education. Superficial as they were, and subject to the charges Professor Hildebrand now makes against "General Education," they nevertheless opened the way to something better. Furthermore, he says that "there is a profound difference between knowing some elementary facts about a variety of sciences and knowing what science itself is about." One wonders whether a nonscience student who has taken Professor Hildebrand's chemistry course or any other good chemistry course knows "what science itself is about," or even what one segment of it is about. True, he has learned some accepted basic principles of chemistry and many of the accepted modern theories. But he has little knowledge of how these ideas of science came into being, even if he can apply them to carefully selected problems. He has little appreciation of the struggles that went into the making of these theories and principles, of the mistakes, the fumblings, the heartbreak, the emotions, and the relations to other human struggles for improvement—for there is no time to pause over such significant history. Surely, "knowing what science itself is about" has something to do with these things as well as with a body of learned principles which are accepted

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today only to be modified tomorrow. Science itself is a human adventure full of weakness, boldness, conflict, sorrow, failure, success, and man's advancement. Just as Professor Hildebrand defines General Education as it existed two decades ago, so also he defines liberal education in the past tense—as it once hoped to be—when he writes: "Liberal education is concerned primarily not with facts but with ideas. The liberally educated person is marked not by what he knows but by how, and how often he thinks . . If this were really true of so-called liberal education today, there would be no General Education movement afoot. There would be no need for it! In fact, however, as our college curricula have been subdivided into smaller and smaller segments of knowledge, as our teachers have been subjected in graduate work to smaller and smaller segments of a specialized field, as the German influence of research and analysis has permeated graduate schools and undergraduate teaching, and as the lecture system has displaced discussion, we have practically lost what little boast to liberality we might ever have had in so-called liberal education. On one point I would agree wholeheartedly with Professor Hildebrand. Liberal education should be concerned with ideas rather than facts. But since it has so largely failed in this task, General Education has become the pinch hitter. In this sense, General Education is only an improved version of liberal education—or should be if it is to have any claim to permanence. In fact, this is its only reason for existence and it is altogether possible that it may one day become indistinguishable from liberal education, should liberal education again assume its true function of teaching students to deal with ideas. This brings us back at long last to the still-unanswered question, why teach science to nonscience students at all? Does science have anything unique to contribute to the nonscientist? For more than three centuries scientists have been answering questions and solving problems posed by nature. They still do not know just how they solve these problems but they have devel-

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oped certain techniques which have been useful and productive and which have contributed to clearer thinking in science. It is an understanding of these techniques that should make a unique contribution to the education of the nonscientist. Can students learn to understand these techniques and make them a useful part of daily living? This is the "sixty-four dollar" question—to which we have, as yet, no answer. We haven't seriously tried to find the answer. We can, however, start by accepting the verdict of the psychologists that the transfer of such training can take place only when its possibility is clearly delineated and pointed up. If this is the main job of General Education in the sciences, it cannot be successfully accomplished in today's traditional science courses, no matter how well taught they may be. As long as they must continue to cover the subject, practice in grappling with meaningful ideas and constructive thinking is too much an incidental outcome. It must become a primary objective if we are to make any headway in achieving it. Through the use of selected science materials and techniques we have a chance to find out whether students can learn to think —provided we focus sharply on this task. If they can be helped materially, then science will have something unique to offer nonscience students. For that reason I would put first in any General Education program in science the objective of learning to reason critically, imaginatively, and constructively about problems in science. I would extend this to include the ability to find how to appreciate and reconcile both idealistic and emotional elements in life with such reasoning in a way to promote mature value judgments, decisions, and actions. Not all these objectives could or should be accomplished in any one course utilizing the materials and techniques of science, but it is important that reasoning in science be not divorced from reasoning in life if we are to hope for any sort of transfer or carry-over. Clearly there is in this connection a need for careful coordination with General Education courses in other fields than science. While there is much to recommend the historical approach and

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the objectives set in President Conant's course, I cannot find myself in total agreement. Certainly historical cases are simpler and can provide meaningful illustrations of scientific techniques. Nor need they be considered in a social vacuum since they can be closely integrated with social needs of their times. Unless used with considerable care, the cases could, however, lack the motivation necessary to stimulate constructive thinking by the student. For the student is looking backward at a successful solution and the case does not necessarily become a vital part of his own problem-solving experience. It is questionable how far he can go under his own steam in seeking answers when the case in its entirety is laid before him. However, the mere casual reading of a case history does not give the spirit of the teaching that goes into it and in General Education this spirit must be paramount. Certainly such a case provides the leisure to explore that is seldom present in a traditional science course cursed with the plague of coverage. The cases also include the groping and fumbling, the failures and successes in a way few introductory science courses ever do. Far from being "brief excerpts from a variety of sciences," they explore and probe to real depth. Furthermore, these scientific cases are related to the active living events of the day and are placed, so to speak, in their proper social context. Furthermore, if students are to know what science itself is about, there is real virtue in selecting cases from several different areas of science rather than in confining them to the content and techniques of a single science discipline. Thus, the techniques of reaching conclusions in astronomy are usually quite different from those in chemistry, and the student should have a view of some of the basic differences, as well as the similarities, that exist in the several fields. If there is any criticism of the case method, it is not in the use of cases but rather in the way cases are used. One way is to use them as examples of the successful—or unsuccessful—solutions of past problems in science. Another is to project the student into

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a case in such a way that he, himself, is faced with a problem and must begin to search for solutions. Used strictly as examples, cases do not necessarily lead the student to take any mental steps of his own. The case is a fait accompli by the time he studies it, and there is danger that he may so regard it. Is there any way to combine such an approach—the use of selected problems or cases from science—with motivating factors that will lead students to take some mental steps of their own, to test out their own reasoning and judgments as they go along? Can this sort of process be made vital enough so that the student is fully conscious that he is not only learning to appreciate but as well to exercise increasingly his own judgment? Perhaps this, if I understand it rightly, is what Professor Hildebrand refers to when he speaks of the "logical approach." At Colgate, during the past three years, we have been experimenting with a course that attempts such an approach. We use cases, carefully selected cases, and not all of them historical. However, the case starts as a problem—a problem for which the students themselves must begin to grope for answers. True, some of these so-called problems seem rather artificial at first and the rules of the game are that the conclusions of authorities are not acceptable. As a brief illustration I might cite the first "problem" that is posed: "Does the sun go around the earth, or the earth around the sun?" Obviously, even our freshmen know the right answer. But when pinned down they must admit that they know the answer because they have been told from kindergarten. Putting aside authority, they make their own observations of stars, sun, moon, and planets. They are then given data to calculate the celestial paths of the moon, the sun, and a planet or two. Following several hours of effort they come up with no discriminating answer since the data confirm either hypothesis about equally well. Additional data are needed; they are sought, and their application is debated in class. Often the teacher becomes in passing the devil's advocate to support what he knows to be an untenable hypothesis. But the basic arguments needed must

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come from the students. Readings must be provided that provide data and arguments, but not answers. This, of course, is not a simple matter, since most writers insist on giving answers, often based on little evidence. Following such discussion, history takes on a new meaning for the students; theories now discarded become something more than the mystical beliefs of untutored ancients. It is here that the struggles of past generations to reach valid conclusions really illuminate the uncertainties of the present. An able teacher can raise sufficient uncertainties in the minds of his students to destroy effectively that complacent attitude so often assumed toward scientific achievements, or the "ain't science wonderful" attitude, and to establish a healthy attitude of skepticism and scrutiny. Whether this approach develops a perspective for better scientific thinking, and whether there is enough carry-over to encourage us to go further, are still debatable matters. That there is at least provided a different concept of the so-called steps in solving a scientific problem is evident early in the course. Since we so often deliberately set up an untenable but plausible hypothesis for the students to demolish, some of them come to regard this procedure as one of the essential steps of the so-called scientific method! At the risk of dwelling too long on these experiments, I would like to include some student reaction. This year our Freshman Council, a representative, elected body of freshmen operating through the preceptorial studies program, undertook a comprehensive and critical survey of the whole freshman year. With no faculty help except as they sought it, they prepared a thirtyfive-page document discussing all phases of their life and work. Admittedly looking for bad spots, they also had some good things to say. With respect to the over-all program of General Education ( core courses ) at the freshman level, they felt that it should be maintained, for, they said, "It would follow, if the number of cores were decreased and electives increased, that the student would surround himself primarily with courses connected with his vocation at the expense of a liberal education."

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With respect to Core I (physical science) taken by all freshmen, they felt that it had been peculiarly successful. They added, We use the word "peculiar" because this core has not only received the acknowledgment of 96 percent of the class as being valuable, and 72 percent of the class as being enjoyable, but it has further received the great bulk of criticism. The criticism, interestingly enough, largely had to do with testing. They added, What should a core, whose purpose it is to familiarize the student with the scientific method of approach, test on? Should it require of the student a pouring out of facts, or should it test his ability to use these facts, and many times, new facts, scientifically? In the past Core I has followed the latter course and tested the ability of the student to proceed scientifically. The freshman class fully realizes the value of this type of testing, yet they maintain that used in toto it has proved unfair. What about the man who knows his facts, who has studied faithfully, yet cannot apply them to new situations? The student solution to this question is the obvious one. In the future, they maintain, the tests should contain some questions testing solely knowledge of the hard facts and other questions that test ability to use the scientific method. One oft repeated comment about Core I has been, "Why should I study for the tests? It won't do me any good, anyway." Here is the old dilemma of a course emphasizing ways of thinking: testing procedures that have, at least in the judgment of the students, achieved a surprising measure of success in testing ways of thinking. Students still want to learn facts and be tested on them. The criticism is something of a compliment to the staff, which had been worried lest the testing techniques were lagging behind the objectives of the course. It is not easy to wean students from the breast-fed milk of fact and answer to the tough unselected diet of ideas. However, the staff was encouraged when the report added, The students have found the study of actual problems to be very effective in teaching the scientific approach. None, it is interesting to note, have rejected it completely. But there has been a persistent criticism of this method: in the beginning the student does not know

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where he is going. He enters the course, in the great majority of cases, without the slightest idea of what the scientific method is, yet he is expected to discover it and follow its progress through actual problems. Usually he succeeds, but his success often comes much too late. If in the course of his work the student finally discovers what some of these techniques of approach to scientific problems are, his achievement—and ours—will have been great indeed. Obviously the staff does not know what "the scientific method" is either. Nor is any effort made to oversimplify scientific techniques so that the student will come out with any pat series of scientific "steps"—a formulation that has done science such disservice in the past. The report of the freshmen, coupled with our own incomplete observations, has been sufficiently encouraging to lead us to hope that we are making some real headway in the development of an understanding of scientific methods and the exercise of student judgment in approaching scientific problems. The next concern must be with the problem of carry-over into other fields— and here we face greater hurdles, for if we do not yet know how man solves problems in natural science we certainly know less about an approach to problems in social science. There are, of course, other things of importance to be gained from a liberalizing study of science—many of them. We have deliberately chosen the objective of better thinking with the hope that we can one day improve the citizen's ability to arrive at more satisfactory judgments. Obviously, if this ability is limited to problems in science it will be of little value to the average citizen, and therefore we must strive to bring about a closer working relation between problems in natural science and those in other fields. But the principal objective in the several areas needs to be fundamentally the same if there is to be any hope for success in the over-all experiment. In a sense this constitutes a new approach to the old goals of mental discipline and transfer of training, but with a clearer emphasis on the techniques of acquiring the habits of thinking

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and transferring them to other areas. Only by continuous experimentation, examination and reëxamination of premises and procedures will we ever find out whether any substantial degree of success can be achieved. If there is anything unique in science it is the techniques that scientists have used so successfully to solve problems in science. If students can learn to understand and apply such techniques without having to become specialists, then science has something of first importance to contribute to general education. We are merely at the threshold of such studies today and have much work to do before we can reach any valid conclusions. But the experimentation is well worth the cost, for there is little to lose and much to gain. With so much space devoted to the problem of General Education in the sciences there is too little left for the other side of the subject, "Special Education in the Sciences." Perhaps little is needed, not because many of us are satisfied with what is being done, but because many of the remarks already made should apply with equal force to special education in the sciences. Certainly the prospective scientist needs to learn how to use scientific techniques in solving problems even more than does the nonscientist. The principal question, perhaps, is whether the prospective scientist should first be subjected to the "discipline" of the traditional basic course in science—of learning the facts and principles—and having acquired these tools should then learn how to deal with "problems," or whether he could be better taught by dealing with problems or cases from the very beginning. Much can be said on both sides even though the use of cases or problems has not yet been seriously tried. Teachers normally prefer the more traditional system—probably because it is easier on them and because it is the way they learned their science. What all too often happens, of course, is that the science student devotes his four years of undergraduate work to learning

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the basic facts and principles and never reaches the thought stage, and hence, in the opinion of the teacher, never becomes qualified to deal with real problems in science. In other words, we devote too much time to training and practically none to educating students in science. In this, we are guilty of following the path of greatest ease in teaching, for it is always simpler to pass on facts and information than to create challenging problems that smack of reality. It is easy to condemn present methods of teaching science to prospective scientists. It is another thing to find better methods. After all, it can be argued that we have turned out many good scientists under present methods, which methods we are therefore loath to abandon. Yet, we do not know how much greater success we might have under other and possibly better methods. It is not impossible, for example, that introductory, organic, and physical chemistry could all be taught by cases. To do this we might have to sacrifice some continuity and coverage but it is surprising how much the student, himself, will fill in these seeming gaps and interstices. In fact, the conventional divisions now existing in chemistry might well be broken down and the cases so intermixed as to provide, from the start, a more realistic treatment, following a problem through all of its aspects. Nor is it at all impossible to develop a case and handle it in such a way in the classroom as to provide for the student some realistic firsthand experience in grappling with scientific problems. The laboratory, of course, should play an important part in providing such experience, but it must first be exorcised of its present cookbook magic. Unfortunately, laboratory experience today has largely lost its early originality and has not lived up to its promise of providing "experience in solving problems." It has become largely a process of verification and in many cases constitutes little more than busywork plus some doubtful training in manipulative skill. The approaches now being developed experimentally for teaching science to nonscientists could well be explored and tried

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as a possible basis for improving the teaching of science to prospective scientists as well. It will be harder to do since we already have an existing order of dogma and ritual together with a strongly entrenched hierarchy. Resistance will be great, and both teachers and students who pioneer such paths will receive the customary academic penalties for trying anything so new and novel. Nevertheless, the need for radical experimental departure from methods and content that have prevailed by default for half a century, and that have become so stereotyped as to have lost their spontaneity, should be great enough to attract a few hardy missionaries willing to devote their time to the improvement of higher education. If we can improve the thinking quality of our scientists by as little as 1 per cent, we shall have more than justified a lavish expenditure of time, energy, and money. If we can, as well, improve the thinking quality of the nonscience college graduate by as little as 1 per cent, we shall have changed for the better the face of the earth—a worthwhile objective indeed.

THE ASSIMILATION OF S C I E N C E INTO GENERAL EDUCATION Paul B. Sears

he question before us can be brought into sharp focus by a comparison of two great eighteenth-century figures—Samuel Johnson and Benjamin Franklin. I have, in fact, just finished rereading Boswell's Life of Johnson, marking every passage that seemed to shed light on Dr. Johnson's relation to science. He was quite learned in the science of his day, dabbling in both chemistry and medicine, and he was also a friend of the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks. Beyond question he was vested with powerful common sense and a clear understanding of the nature of evidence. He was, in addition, one of the great classical scholars of his time. If anyone could be said to possess a general education, it was Dr. Johnson. And yet, as one reads the story of his life, it becomes increasingly clear that he was a tortured soul, whose world did not hang together. Whenever he came to a question involving orthodoxy—political, social, or religious—his demand for evidence and his sense of its importance simply dived for the intellectual equivalent of a cyclone cellar. His science was abandoned as a dead and useless thing.

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By contrast, his contemporary, Dr. Benjamin Franklin—sometimes called one of the first of modern men—always exhibited the utmost freedom and serenity in the presence of difficult problems. His world of experience was a whole, not divided into airtight compartments. His science was a living reality. The history of Harvard University affords a similar contrast: that between Louis Agassiz and Asa Gray, in their reception of Darwin's doctrine of natural selection. Agassiz, disciple of Cuvier

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who had frowned upon the evolutionists of his day, had boldly championed the idea of continental glaciation. I pass over the fact that some geologists incline today to discount both his courage and his originality in this episode. Be that as it may, Agassiz locked his mind against Darwinism when that doctrine was uttered, even though some of his own work provided substantial evidence for evolution. Gray, on the other hand, who was personally as pious as his colleague, examined the doctrine with his wide-ranging, universal intelligence and pronounced it good. In view of the record, I think we might fairly ask of any educational plan: "Will it favor the Johnsons and the Agassiz's, or tend to encourage the Franklins and the Grays?" I vote, of course, for the latter. Our immediate problem, however, is one of mechanics. Is it a better thing to have separate science courses for the future scientist and his nonscientific friend, or will they and their society benefit by keeping them together until their paths, through specialization, perforce diverge? Practically all the discussion I have heard on the subject of science in General Education has been based on the assumption that the future scientist should have one kind of elementary science instruction and the nonscientist another. If that is the prevailing view, then I am about to utter a minority report. Though definite figures are hard to come by, it is a fair estimate that fewer than 10 percent of the students in an introductory college science course are going to continue with or apply that subject. As matters stand now, it is very largely this small minority whose supposed needs are kept in mind by those who plan, administer, and teach such courses. The present conference is the evidence of a wholesome protest against this intolerable neglect of the future nonscientists. I have had colleagues who admit that only 10 or 15 percent of their beginning students go ahead. When I say, "You mean the rest can go to the Devil?" they say, "Yes, as far as we are concerned." This is a tragic situation. For myself I see in it an equal injury to the future scientist. Neglect of or

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damage to either is an offense against society and I suggest that the initial experience with science should be a bond and not a barrier between the two groups. It is my observation that this neglect of the general student has been most serious in the larger schools. I speak chiefly of the state universities, which are staffed with specialists and with which I have been associated most of my teaching life. It is a rather remarkable fact that such schools actually contribute fewer graduates proportionately to pure science than do the smaller liberal arts colleges. The figures are still more striking when total enrollments are considered. In examining this situation it is difficult to distinguish between the effects of poor planning and poor teaching. It is clear, however, that, whatever the course plans, in large institutions the teaching of beginning science is frequently left to the underprivileged members of the staff. If it is the avowed purpose in these schools to favor the future specialist, it is obvious that they are somehow defeating their own purpose, since the end number of free recruits is so remarkably low in proportion to total class enrollment. Now, how do we know that all is not well with the supposedly educated man who is not, professionally, a scientist? First, there is still too low a level of scientific literacy among the lay public. This charge is true in spite of the popularity of certain types of scientific literature and the widespread interest in certain fields of applied science, whether as hobbies or as an adjunct to vocation. In my experience—and I have had a good deal of it in trying to bring about various types of social action which involved use and understanding of science—it is more difficult than it should be to secure enthusiastic and popular support for the intelligent application of science in many matters of public welfare. As a rule, many measures of sanitation, sewage disposal, land use, conservation, and abatement of nuisances such as industrial waste, are brought about only by the driving force of a few enlightened leaders moving against a dead weight of public apathy based on ignorance and confusion.

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I am reminded of a conversation between two of my elderly erstwhile colleagues a number of years ago. One man, a very distinguished teacher of the humanities, approached another who was a biologist and said, "I suppose you will think I am oldfashioned, but I don't think that germs have anything to do with disease." "No," said the other, "I don't think you are old-fashioned, I think you are just ignorant." In state or local courts where scientific problems are involved, one constantly sees questions that should be referred to qualified experts debated before juries by paid witnesses, hired by litigants. These conditions would be impossible if there were sufficient public understanding of science. In the Federal courts, which have greater freedom, the situation is somewhat better. For instance, the Federal court in one of the big smelter cases in Utah a number of years ago tired of listening to these paid experts testifying against each other. Finally it got the bright idea of doing away with them and appointing its own commission. As a result the matter was settled within a few months. The issue goes beyond the matter of inadequate scientific information as a basis for intelligent citizenship. We face at the present time the painful task of reshaping age-old concepts of the nature of the universe, the bases of human values, and the standards of human conduct. One place where this problem comes to a focus, for example, is on the whole set of ethical concepts that have to do with sexual behavior. There are many other illustrations. It will not be possible for mankind to make its way safely through the present morass of confusion unless full cognizance is taken of the contributions that science has made, and can make. It is of particular importance that those who engage in the creative arts, and thereby influence the emotional trends of their contemporary societies, be aware of the consistent operation of scientific principles throughout the natural universe. Observation of current tendencies in writing, in music, in the graphic arts, suggests that science has not been without influence. However, in my judgment, this influence does not seem to be suf-

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fìciently integrated and constructive; it gives the impression just now of being destructive, atomistic, episodical, and too often devoid of a sense of continuity, form, or process. The inadequacy of such a viewpoint among those whose function it is to sense, to express, and to modify the sanctions of their fellows should be obvious. For example, Beethoven makes sense to me when, as an ecologist, I listen because his music exemplifies process, development, organization, resolution. I can think of other art of more recent vintage which suggests only the statistical behavior of a rattling bunch of black and white marbles in a bag! In my judgment it is fair to say that the general public does not at the present time have adequate knowledge of science for intelligent political life, for a philosophy suited to the modern world, or for supplying the emotional energy and direction to follow such a philosophy. What of the effect of our present scientific instruction on the specialist himself? This is evident in a number of ways; it is a commonplace among editors and publishers that the average British scientist writes much more effectively concerning his field and its relationships than does his colleague in this country, who is certainly his equal in technical accomplishments. Again, in this country, there are scientists of influence and distinction whose grasp of scientific fields other than their own is pitifully inadequate. Instances can be cited of leaders in physical science, for example (and I can make this indictment against biologists in reverse), who regard the problem of conservation as of little or no consequence, and who hold that when the need becomes great enough, means will be found to circumvent any shortage of such organic raw materials as food and fiber. To such men the whole idea of a balance of nature is a closed book, even though it rests on the same principles of thermodynamics as their own subject. A conversation I recently had with a man not only very eminent but rational and patriotic will illustrate this very point: to him conservation is nonsense. Our superb engineers have the responsibility for tremendous operations on

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environment; yet it is only through the greatest outside pressure that they can be made to give adequate attention to problems in applied biology and land use. Dams are constantly being built without taking into account biological situations that can be accurately described as true engineering hazards. Finally, there is reason to believe that in the field of pure science the highest type of creative work requires a good perspective of the specialist's field in relation both to scientific knowledge and to human knowledge in general. This, of course, is not always true. We have the phenomenon of accidental effect in science as well as in art. But it is true frequently enough to be a serious consideration. No one questions the general effectiveness of specialized professional training. What seems to be lacking in too many professional scientists is not specialized but general education in science. As far as I can tell, the word science has really lost some of the better features of its original meaning. In short, both laymen and professionals seem to me to lack whatever it is that should result from the assimilation of science into general education. As I see it, there exists between laymen and scientists an intellectual gap which ought not to be widened further; instead, it should be bridged by every possible means— and I do not look upon separate introductory courses for the two groups as any kind of bridge. On that point I build my case. I am glad that Dr. Castle suggests that perhaps there are more scientists in the world than are listed in the books. We are approaching many community problems, some simple, some more complex, that do have scientific elements in them and that must be solved; and there are not enough working professional scientists to tackle those problems. Our experience in a number of parts of the country shows that there are reserves of potential scientific ability that can be called on if they are needed. This brings us to the practical question of what kind of instruction will best serve the two groups—professional and nonprofessional. Before proceeding with that enquiry, it seems proper to point out certain considerations of which one must

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be aware. The planner of instruction, like the architect, must work out his project by accepting its inevitable limitations. At this point I shall be a bit didactic just to save time. I have numbered my considerations: 1. No teacher can possibly tell all he knows. Yet I would say that probably the greatest professional neurosis we have is the fear that we won't tell everything. 2. It follows that any good general course must be highly selective as to content and emphasis. 3. Both learning and teaching are highly personal processes, subject to the great variations of human personality. 4. It follows that too rigid a course will defeat its own ends. After all, the teacher teaches what he is. (I remember sitting in on a friend's lectures in general physics, when I was a young teacher; I wished to review the subject and get caught up with it. I was tremendously impressed, for I was floundering around in my own job of trying to make sense out of the field I was teaching, while my friend did a beautiful job—there was no question about it. So when it was all over with, I went to him and said, "It must be a tremendous satisfaction to teach a subject that has such a beautiful internal logic." His answer was, "Hell, Sears, the logic isn't in the subject, it's in my head." Which was a very good lesson for me to learn at that stage of my career. ) 5. The basic assumption of science is one of order and complete interrelation. 6. If science teaching is to contribute to general education, it should exemplify this basic assumption. No course should be taught in a vacuum, but rather in full awareness of its relation to other fields of knowledge. 7. A single course in a single science is not enough to give an adequate perspective of the natural world to the educated mind of today. 8. Natural phenomena and scientific methods must be learned through experience; verbalization is not enough. I don't pretend to understand why this is so; but I am convinced of it empirically

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as a result of a lifetime of teaching. Unless you get your hands into science and so have actual physical experience of it, you really don't know it in the sense that you should. 9. Words and other symbols are an integral part of scientific experience, for without precise communication there can be no science. 10. It follows that great responsibility rests not only upon the scientist, but upon those in charge of language instruction from the very beginning of the educational process. Symbols should be taught, as far as possible, through experience with the objects and processes these symbols represent. 11. Science in general education is a problem not confined to the college level. Certain European secondary schools probably do a better job in some respects than the American colleges. I have in mind the Dutch secondary schools, which do an excellent job in biology. 12. However, the problem, if not confined to college levels, certainly centers there. Reform at this level will surely radiate downward and outward. 13. There are distinct educational values in having the future scientist and the future nonscientist work side by side, as I have observed many times. 14. Whatever may be lost in the way of detailed technical information by the future specialist who works in a more general course may be quickly made up in suitable advanced courses. And it will be more than compensated for by the gain in breadth. Having set forth these considerations in too condensed fashion, I am under obligation to suggest the kind of courses and course material and the kind of teaching that will in my judgment meet them. I have already mentioned the great variations in teaching situations and students. I am mindful too of the tragic collapse of classics teaching, once dominant in American higher education, and the reaction against its rigidly prescribed courses. In consequence, my first insistence is upon intelligent flexibility for any science teaching, a flexibility that will permit adjustment of each

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institution to the resources of its teaching staff, to the character of its student body, and to the fact that science itself is not a static thing. Obviously, a program suited to a college such as Oberlin, whose student body is highly selected, would scarcely operate in a state university obliged by law to admit all high-school graduates, including those whose communities insist that every pupil be eventually graduated. And while the growing body of scientific knowledge is often urged as an obstacle to the kind of course I have in mind, it need not be so. The whole trend of science is in keeping with the basic assumption of the unity of nature and of law. Borders and boundaries between disciplines once isolated are dissolving; these include barriers between physics and biology, organic and inorganic chemistry, and ecology and genetics, to name but a few instances. In other words, we are moving toward unity in our scientific conceptions. Science teaching, like science itself, must be and remain a living process. As a goal, however, I do have in mind something like a two-year sequence: the first year would be a genuine fusion of the physical sciences, that is, physics and chemistry, introducing the broadest conceptions of astronomy and geology. This would be a kind of cosmography. (No one knows better than I what an act of self-sacrifice this would be for our friends the chemists, who have long ridden high on a seller's market, and I say that in all friendliness and respect. ) The second year of this sequence would be given to the biological sciences, including those portions of geology most appropriate. It would be built squarely upon the work of the first year. Unless one has had, as I have, the pleasure of teaching general biology to students already trained in the physical sciences, he has little idea of the economy of effort that can be brought to bear under such conditions. Under this plan, I would relegate all instruction in the present separate sciences to the third and fourth year of college—even, and perhaps especially, for the future specialist. And while I be-

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lieve firmly that what I have outlined is a necessary minimum for the liberally educated mind of today, I should again, with the fate of the classics in mind, allow reasonable exemptions for the nonspecialist, even excusing him from science if he so insists. Instead of requiring this course, I should like to see it made so excellent, so dynamic, that it would get into the very air of the institution so that all but the most indifferent would want to take it. This is possible. It happened to botany with the late Dr. Charles Bessey of Nebraska, and to a considerable extent with chemistry under Lloyd Evans of Ohio State. What I have suggested is a goal—not perhaps to be attained at once, nor, once attained, to be frozen as the classics were. In the way of expedients, meanwhile, in tiding over the transition, I would suggest two possibilities: First, where the present plan of a single required course in laboratory science must be retained pro tem, much can be accomplished by a gradual rééducation of the teaching staff through conferences and reading. This reeducation should be in the direction of breaking down barriers between disciplines, so that in teaching each particular science the great principles of other sciences may be drawn in and integrated with its subject matter. That this, again, is a reasonable possibility, I know from experience. One need not be teaching physics or chemistry to introduce the principles of thermodynamics as a reasonable element of his subject. Uniformitarianism need not be confined to geology nor evolution to biology. In short, not only is this broad viewpoint possible, it is essential to the intelligent general exposition of any one of the general sciences. It must be an authentic part of the intellectual equipment of the teacher; it cannot be dragged in by the heels! Finally, as a further aid in transition, I should offer, in all the sciences, courses open without prerequisite and designed to lead to a lifelong interest connected with that science. I realize what a storm of protest this is likely to arouse in some conventional scientific circles, particularly in what I have called the seller's market. Imagine the feelings of a serious, scholarly physical

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scientist when confronted with this challenge! But again I am speaking from experience, based on conversations with graduates who have had work let us say in ornithology or in dendrology, and who have retained a lifelong interest in such subjects. Surely, what we call natural history—biological sciences and earth sciences—need not exhaust the possibilities in this direction. Such, in brief, are my rather loose-jointed suggestions for a practical program, but the heart of it consists in not allowing any by-pass from general education for the future scientist, even in his own field; for that, I am convinced, is too serious a matter to trifle with at a time when technology and applied science have such profound import for humanity. Furthermore, the problem is too big to be confined to the departments that teach science. To my mind it opens up questions that ramify into the whole curriculum; and obviously, we are not the only ones who must give ground and shift. One thing that I like to think of as a goal is a change in the presentation of social sciences. Let there be during the first year of college an adequate course in the study of the processes of human culture, the very best that can be derived from modern cultural anthropology. This, if properly taught, should serve as a nexus to tie together all of the sciences and the rest of human knowledge, making clear that science itself is a cultural enterprise, and giving a thread of unity to the whole of education. That is one thing; another is the possibility of further economies in the teaching of English. As you know, our British colleagues, to whom I have referred, and who write so much better than we do, don't take any courses in English in college; but there isn't a moment when attention to the business of communication is relaxed. I recall with particular pleasure hearing Sir Oliver Franks, the British Ambassador, speak some time ago. He spoke without manuscript. One of my newspaper friends, who was in the audience, later wrote an editorial in which he called the speech an amazing performance, because, as it issued, it was not only perfect printer's copy but was exquisitely formed. So much from a background that included no college

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teaching in English! I suspect that this business of teaching communication is something we should not leave to a separate department. I think we should all participate in it to a far greater extent than we now do. May I conclude with a word in appreciation of the group of men here at Harvard and elsewhere who, having achieved substantial places in scientific research, are willing to take time away from their laboratories to work upon the problem of science in General Education. No one acquainted with the intense demands that modern research makes upon its practitioners will underestimate the generous spirit of these men.

The Philosophy of Science and the Teaching of Science

THE ROLE OF PHILOSOPHY IN A GENERAL EDUCATION COURSE IN PHYSICAL SCIENCE Edwin C. Kemble

his paper is a rather personal discussion of the part that may be played by philosophy in a General Education course in physical science for college freshmen. It is based on my experience of the last few years, and of course many of the opinions expressed are open to question. For this reason, and because I am no expert in either General Education or philosophy, I take the liberty of writing in the first person singular. My attempt to handle a freshman General Education course after a lifetime of advanced and specialized instruction has involved a good deal of stumbling and has confronted me with more problems than I could solve satisfactorily. My interest in the philosophy of science is of long standing, but avocational and entirely unsystematic.

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Nevertheless, the attempts to introduce a philosophical 1 point of view in the course have met with encouraging response and I trust that an account of the experiment will be of interest. The course in question is given jointly by Professor Gerald Holton and myself. The students are a selected lot, all of whom have taken high-school physics and are judged to have at least average ability to handle simple mathematics. By and large they are intelligent and ambitious. So it is not to be expected that the 1 In this paper I am using the term philosophy and its derivatives in a loose sense, including thereunder general ideas of all sorts that transcend the limits of scientific fact and theory.

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response we have experienced would necessarily be duplicated in the case of an unselected group of freshmen. My thesis is in brief that any attempt to relate physical science to the story of the development of Western culture, to other fields of human interest and activity, and to the problems that face our civilization today must inevitably involve a good deal of elementary philosophy; that the philosophical aspects of a freshman course in physical science can be of the greatest permanent value to the student; and that a surprisingly large number of students take to the discussion of philosophical ideas with avidity. Finally, it is my experience that the attempt to gain a better understanding of the historical interaction between science and philosophy and to work out a clearer conception of present-day philosophical problems is one of the most stimulating parts of the job—one that does perhaps more than any other to keep me on my toes. Three objections to my main thesis are likely to suggest themselves. You may ask in the first place whether freshmen are not too immature to appreciate the philosophical aspects and implications of science. Ought not philosophy as a part of General Education to wait for the senior year? My answer is a definite "No." Undoubtedly a closely knit and systematic study of philosophy would be inappropriate to the freshman year and to General Education, but the sooner a student can be encouraged to look at the world from a philosophical point of view the better. It is my impression that young children very often worry over problems of philosophy with which their elders can give them little help. In later life these questions are shrugged off as unprofitable for the practical business of daily living, and the horizon of thought is correspondingly limited. Therefore it seems to me wise to acquaint students at an early stage with some of the historical roots of critical thinking. A second and more serious objection has to do with the problem of the time thus consumed. There is so much genuine sci-

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entific material that one would like to include, and it is so easy for a course that tries to do too much to become superficial. Is it not necessary for the instructor to sharply limit his tendency to wander off into generalities if he is to come out somewhere with his science? To this objection my answer is both "Yes" and "No." Certainly the problem of squeezing things in has been a grievous one. This is true in spite of the fact that we are at liberty to select any topics in physical science that seem worth while, with no obligation to cover the different sciences systematically or to allocate approximately equal segments of time to astronomy, chemistry, physics, and geology. We try to describe the way in which the astronomy of the solar system has been worked out historically and to deal in a fundamental way with Newtonian mechanics and the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. We also try to build up a sufficient background of physics and chemistry so that the student can be introduced to the nuclear theory of the atom without getting his feet off the ground. With minor exceptions that do not have to do with our central themes, we refuse to pass out theoretical ideas without explaining where they came from. All this means that the course plan is sufficiently ambitious—that we are always in hot water about keeping up with the time schedule. Nevertheless, I am sure it would be wrong to seek a way out of these difficulties by deleting all, or most, of the philosophy. Actually, as far as lectures are concerned, material of this kind takes up only some six or seven out of a total of eighty periods; the students get much more such material in the collateral reading. What there is of philosophy seems to add tremendously to the interest of the students and to their depth of understanding. They take it as a challenge to do some thinking for themselves. I have the feeling that it unifies the course and raises the intellectual level by a significant amount. If some topic must be omitted it is not to be the little philosophy that has been injected into the course up to now.

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A third objection lies in the fact that like most teachers of physical science I have had no systematic training in philosophy. Therefore I speak without authority and am in constant danger of misrepresenting the facts of the history of philosophy and of passing out half-baked ideas that will not stand up under criticism. Would it not be more sensible to leave philosophy to the philosophers? The trouble is that such a policy would rob the physicalscience course of much of its significance and perspective. It would restore the old compartmentalization of academic thinking that General Education is intended to break down. So I take the risks, making no bones of the deficiencies of my own background and trying to be particularly tentative where that background is weakest. To me the important thing is to interest the student in the critical examination of fundamental conceptions and to make him aware of the extent to which the advance of science has modified man's understanding of the universe in which he lives. I take comfort in the fact that my philosophical background is growing as I continue to teach. We can all read, and most of us have opportunities to hash out our philosophic ideas with friends who have a similar interest. Meanwhile, perhaps the fact that we are learners as well as teachers may add to the vividness of our instruction. Finally, I feel that the basic purposes of General Education can be attained only if we proceed along these lines in the spirit of adventure and with a willingness to "stick out our necks" wherever necessary beyond the conservative line of academic custom. It seems to me that the ultimate goal of General Education should be to equip students to meet on a high level the personal and public problems of an era of flux and crisis. From the standpoint of the individual the great dangers are, on the one side, the sense of futility and lack of direction fostered by cynical American materialism and, on the other side, the mental isolationism of bigotry. To meet these dangers and give integrity

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to their lives our students need the stabilizing influence of historical perspective and a sense of kinship with the great creative minds of the past. To meet our vast social and political problems they need minds schooled in the analytic 2 experimental methods of science, reconciled to the absence of easy solutions, free from slavish devotion to tradition, but aware of the existence of all-important values in our traditional culture and of the dangers of discontinuous departures from it. To serve these ends it seems to me that the General Education course in physical science should do all it can to clarify and illustrate the nature of scientific method; it should endeavor to lay bare essential historic and scientific roots of modern thinking, and should dwell somewhat on the limitations as well as the advantages of the analytic method of science. In short, some philosophy is an essential part of our job. Let me now put my general suggestions in concrete form by giving a provisional answer to the question "How much and what philosophical content is it possible and worth while to bring into a freshman course of the type under consideration?" I shall do this by describing briefly what Professor Holton and I have been trying to do in our own course during the past few years. Naturally we don't claim to have the answer—there must be many answers. But if we report on our own efforts the reader can judge for himself. The general scheme of our course is as follows: We devote the fall term to the astronomy of the solar system and to Newtonian mechanics, with a small interlude of geology, including a field trip. In this term we follow the historical approach. Nearly all the philosophy in the course is introduced in commenting on Greek science, on Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. The spring term is devoted to the problem of the structure of matter, and while we try to follow an order that is both logical 2 Analytic is not used in this paper in any very technical philosophic sense, but merely to denote the process suggested by such familiar phrases as "to analyze the situation."

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and relatively historical, the emphasis on history and philosophy is greatly reduced. In this term we deal with the kinetic theory of gases, the beginnings of chemistry, the atomic nature of electricity, and various other topics that must be introduced in the hope that at the end—in June—the students may be able to read with some pleasure and understanding George Gamow's book Atomic Energy in Cosmic and Human Life. Philosophy is touched on in connection with two rather tough items that I wouldn't advise inserting into every physical-science course. For one thing, we have a lecture or two on Einstein's special theory of relativity; we want our students to know about the energy formula and the variation of mass with velocity. So we try to explain something about the origin of the special theory of relativity and some of its chief conclusions. In connection with a long paper assignment most of the students read a considerable part of Professor Frank's excellent biography of Einstein with its discussion of the theory of relativity and its philosophic background. Then I talk a little about the problem of causality and determinism in connection with the wave-corpuscle paradoxes of the quantum theory. So far, however, I have never had time for an adequate presentation of this subject. Now to go back to the fall term. We begin with the astronomy of the solar system, attempting to show how, step by step, the elementary ideas were built up. I wish the time schedule permitted us to deal with this topic by the Colgate method that Dean French has described—confronting the students at the beginning with the obvious observable facts and forcing them to think the situation through for themselves with a minimum of assistance. There isn't time, however, and we can't do the job of fostering creative scientific thinking that is done at Colgate. At an appropriate stage we interrupt the discussion of scientific concepts to look back historically at the specific contributions of the Greeks to astronomy and to the development of a scientific point of view. The endeavor to assess the Greek

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contribution takes us into the beginning of the history of philosophy. We stress the contrast between the Greek conception of an understandable and basically lawful universe and the anthropomorphic mythology of earlier civilizations. We try to give some explanation, however imperfect, of the Greek development of logic and of the limitations of Greek science that arose from their successes in the axiomatic treatment of geometry and from their conception of the place of purpose in the interpretation of natural law. Thus a groundwork is laid for an appreciation of the mental hazards that Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton had to overcome in overthrowing the conceptual schemes of Aristotle and Ptolemy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In connection with the discussion of the Copernican theory we take time to discuss theories in general and to describe the modern pragmatic view of physical theory. I like to stress the notion that a theory is an explanation, or coordination, of a group of facts that we perceive more or less directly, in terms of a scheme of »ideas that we invent. Attention is called to the fact that the assumptions of a theory range in character from such a simple and natural conception as that of the back side of the moon through various simple mechanical models up to assumptions of a highly mathematical and abstract character remote from the intuitions of common sense. We point out that the intuitional appeal of a hypothesis is unimportant in comparison with its success in coordinating the facts under consideration. The external world itself may be regarded as a theory that every child invents for himself to explain and coordinate what goes on in his stream of consciousness. From this point of view the value of a theory lies in its power to organize experience, to predict, and to suggest new relations between facts that may be established by further experimental investigation. Even a successful theory does not necessarily qualify as a formulation of the distinction between reality and appearance—although the Greeks considered that to establish

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this distinction was the prime purpose of science. On the basis of this notion of their value we propose a series of pragmatic tests for judging the merits of theories. In connection with the theories of Copernicus and Ptolemy we insist that the difference is primarily a matter of frame of reference so that one should not say that one is true and the other false. Rather, one is convenient, the other inconvenient. The general question of scientific method is brought up when we have completed our account of Newton's theory of gravitation. By this time we have discussed enough specific scientific developments with interacting experimental and theoretical aspects so that it is worth while to look broadly at scientific methods in general. Here we stress the point, emphasized elsewhere in this volume, that there is no single order of procedure that constitutes a unique scientific method. There are, however, characteristics of successful scientific work, such as the ability to approach nature tentatively and with a minimum of preconception, the willingness to build up knowledge step by step, and the realization that complex phenomena must be studied by the analytic method of breaking them down into simple relevant elements. There are a number of standard procedural steps including a preliminary analysis of the essential features of the problem, casual observation and controlled experiments, the development of new conceptual schemes, and the mathematical analysis of the verifiable consequences of theories, but still no standard procedural formula. The method must in each case be adapted to the problem, to the conceptual schemes available for its interpretation when the work is begun, and to the talents of the investigator. We help drive this material home by examples taken from the earlier work of the course and by other examples illustrating the variety of approaches that can be employed to advantage in different types of problems. Outside reading on scientific method is assigned and some of our students have written excellent long papers on the subject. Now I come to the point about which I can expect a maximum

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of disagreement. This has to do with the discussion of the influence of science on philosophy and religion, where I step farthest outside the usual boundaries for courses in natural science. Our initial stress is on the historical effect of the scientific revolution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There are excellent chapters in J. H. Randall's The Making of the Modern Mind that describe the impact of the scientific ideas of Newton on the thinking of the intellectual classes in Europe. We assign several of these chapters as collateral reading in order to acquaint our students with the historic debates between those who have inferred from the developments in physical science and biological science that the universe is a totally purposeless machine, in which the life of man has no significance except for himself, and those who continue to believe in a Divine Being and in the absolute significance of moral and spiritual values. This is, of course, dangerous ground, normally shunned by teachers of science, but it is in this area as much as in the area of technology that science has actually altered the life of man. As I see it, the crisis of our civilization is a spiritual and moral crisis accentuated by technological advances that tend to rob the individual of independence and self-reliance, while exaggerating the social destruction that follows moral weakness. In this crisis science plays a multiple role. On the one hand it is clear that only in the tentative exploratory spirit of science is there a way out of the conflict of modern bigotries and a possibility of solving the vast social problems created by the largescale organization of industry and by the gradual elimination of the self-sufficiency of independent nations. On the other hand, science has cut much of the ground out from under the traditional basis of man's aspirations and his confidence in his own ultimate worth. From my point of view, the science course that ignores these matters is missing an important opportunity. It is my feeling that college students should face the facts of the historic debates on the relation between science and religion and look for themselves at the pros and cons. We can't attempt

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to answer the ultimate questions for them, but we may be able to help some to avoid jumping at unjustified conclusions and to ease the intolerance with which the religious and the irreligious often view one another. Many students are quick to infer from the skeptical bias of modern literature and from their contacts with science that the debate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is now closed and that the materialistic view of life is the only one tenable to intelligent people today. The successes of biologists working in terms of a purely physicochemical conceptual scheme have brought about a wide acceptance of this conclusion. Nevertheless, it is clear to me that the case for materialism is by no means proved, that our universe is still a universe of paradoxes whose exploration is far from complete and in which there is still room for spiritual as well as material conceptions. We accordingly take time for a brief consideration of the problem of mind and matter, of the eventual limitations of the analytic method of science, of the practical need which men experience for a faith of some kind that goes beyond established fact. No doubt the pair of lectures devoted to these topics are colored by my own personal views. I take care, however, to avoid confusing fact and personal opinion as far as possible. By and large the students respond with keen interest to this aspect of the work of the course. Such an attempt to explore the implications of science for the faith of men is bound to be unsatisfactory and sure to be criticized. Nevertheless, I hold that if it is honestly done it is a healthy and valid contribution to the course in natural science.

WHAT TEACHERS OF GENERAL C O U R S E S IN T H E S C I E N C E S KNOW ABOUT

EDUCATION SHOULD

PHILOSOPHY

Philipp Frank

W

hat teachers of General Education courses have to learn about philosophy is in a certain sense infinite, without limit. But when one talks about philosophy to science students one should never talk about it in the sense in which it is taught in traditional philosophy courses. In courses of the latter type we would discuss those thinkers who declared that the whole world was made of fire, others who thought it was water, those who said that the whole world was at rest, and others that it was in motion, those who said that the whole world was spirit, and others that it was matter. All of these opinions have been held at certain times and they are interesting to explore, especially because, of course, they are not nearly as simple as they look if we give them only a cursory glance and not investigate them carefully. For behind all of these statements there is a long history of human thought and each of them had a very definite meaning at a certain place in that history. I believe it is futile to enumerate many of these opinions for science students because we cannot discuss them in a very thorough way. If we discuss them in a perfunctory way, our students will arrive at the conclusion that these historical figures in philosophy were simply fools to hold such absurd opinions which no one can prove. It seems clear, therefore, that we should not try to introduce all of the philosophical opinions that have ever been held. As a matter of fact, almost every possible opinion has been held at

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some time or another, and I believe that in every opinion there is something true. But it is more profitable to our students if we concentrate on problems that grow naturally out of the scientific field they are studying rather than spend too much time on opinions. One should not try to feed somebody who is not hungry; similarly, we should introduce to the science student only questions that grow naturally out of his scientific background, or at least start in this way. Everybody knows all too well that the science student works in a great many fields in which he can find philosophical questions—and he would have a great many more if most of his science teachers did not discourage his questions by telling him that they are just nonsense. Sometimes the science teacher is more polite and sends him instead to the professor of philosophy, but this is often no more than a polite way of saying that his question is nonsense. Since our aim is to explore what teachers of General Education courses in the sciences should know about philosophy, it might be well to make clear at once that originally there was no distinction between science and philosophy. That distinction is relatively new in history. In antiquity, for example, and in the Middle Ages, it did not exist. In fact, there probably was not much distinction between the two until around the time of Descartes. Before that time science and philosophy were approximately the same thing—systematized knowledge, or the search for general principles from which we can derive all our knowledge. Thus, in his book on physics Aristotle describes the procedure of physical science which, in his language, is much the same as the procedure of philosophy. He says that all systematic knowledge proceeds in the following way: We start from what is in his expression "clear to us but intrinsically obscure" and "we proceed to what is obscure to us but intrinsically clear." I quote this in Aristotle's original form, which may seem a little unusual to us, but it represents the procedure of science and the general idea of systematized knowledge even today. The idea is this: What we begin with in scientific observation

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or experiment is immediate sense experience that is rather hazy. As a matter of fact, if I may put it in a rather flippant way, I might say that the description of any physical observation or experiment is made in terms of ordinary sense impressions and that we don't need any other vocabulary than what we use to describe our breakfast table. We have to say, for example, that we see what we call a pointer moving between two marks on a scale, or, more correctly, some colored spots, a red one and a blue one perhaps, bouncing around between other colored spots; in other cases, that we feel heat or cold. With such terminology every experiment can be described. Whether it concerns the most delicate point in nuclear physics or in astrophysics, of small dimension or of large, every experiment or observation can be described in the simple vocabulary of everyday life. It is from this level that science starts, but we soon notice that in these terms our science does not present any general laws. So long as we are confined to speaking in these terms of "common sense," every experience seems to be different from every other experience. What science aims at is to create uniformity in the world, and the only way in which it can create uniformity is to introduce abstract terms—for example, terms like "electromagnetic field," "electric force," "magnetic pole strength," and some even more abstract terms like "energy," "entropy," and so on. All such terms are coined by science and cannot be derived from our immediate experience, but they are intrinsically and intellectually clear. Aristotle believed that the laws expressed in such intellectually clear terms were self-evident judgments. They were no longer based on our sense experience but on the penetration of our intellect, finding that they were true. In other words, they were independent of any experience we might have. Let me give an example. Consider an extremely simple kind of experience: taking a piece of paper and allowing it to drop to the floor. We want to describe in terms of a general law what will happen as this piece of paper falls. Can we know the behavior of any piece of paper which we know is different from

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that of every other piece? By using the terms of the language of our everyday life, we cannot predict exactly how long it will take any piece of paper to fall or even on what spot it will hit the ground. So it seems to us that this piece of paper behaves in a kind of whimsical way. What is the scientific procedure when we are confronted with such a situation? It is to create a wholly different and artificial situation such as a piece of paper falling in a vacuum rather than in air; the paper becomes merely a very small object, a mass point, and then we invent other concepts to describe the behavior of this mass point in a vacuum in a simple way. We can then say that a mass point falling freely in a vacuum will fall with a constant acceleration. By this we mean that its velocity will increase by the same amount in every second of time. We use these very artificial concepts—mass point, velocity, acceleration, seconds of time—which are not immediately given by our sense experience. As a matter of fact, these are all very complicated concepts; it is very difficult to express in terms of sense experience what velocity is, what acceleration is, or what a second of time is. But although these concepts are very complex in terms of sense observation, they are the kind of apparently simple concepts we use in describing the laws of nature. In other words, a law of nature is something like this: a body falling freely in a vacuum moves with a constant acceleration; but if no force exists the body moves with a constant speed and it will not change its speed but will always move in a straight line with the original speed. This kind of simple law, once it has been formulated, gives us the impression that it is self-evident. Many people are under the impression, found in many textbooks, that you can "understand" the law that every material body which has a certain speed will keep this same speed in a straight line unless acted on by a force. It is simply the law of inertia, which in good plain English means the law of laziness. Everyone supposedly can understand it. If you were to ask whether the law is self-evident or not, many physics teachers would be inclined to say yes, that you see it in operation all the time. If you

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put an object on the table, it will clearly stay there as long as no one takes it away. If we put the body into motion and no one stops it, everyone will agree that the body will continue in its motion as long as no force interferes with it. The law seems to be plausible to us and almost self-evident; it is, as Aristotle would put it, "objectively intelligible." This process may be called "reducing all the phenomena to simple truths that have great plausibility and are intellectually clear." It was the original program of science and philosophy that in time we would succeed in reducing everything that happened in the world to simple abstract concepts, and that in terms of these concepts we could characterize all. natural events by statements that would be self-evident and clear to our understanding. By the processes of logical deduction, we could then derive from these self-evident principles the many phenomena we observe. Such was the original idea of science and philosophy as conceived at the time of Aristotle and even earlier. It was accepted throughout all antiquity and the Middle Ages, and I would say it still existed in the philosophy of Descartes. This conception started from the assumption that there are principles which are clear and the truth of which is plain to our intellect. Deriving the phenomena of nature from these selfevident principles by logical deduction could then be described by likening science or philosophy, which were one and the same thing, to a tree. Thus did Descartes actually describe his philosophy. This tree, he says, consists of different parts. The roots of it are metaphysics. The trunk is physics and the branches are applied physics. Ethics and medicine are kinds of applied science to be placed up in the branches alongside of engineering. If we deprive this idea of its pictorial character, we see that the main point is that the practical applications of science can be derived from general principles which are intellectually and objectively clear to us. This idea of the unity of science and philosophy is historically at the root of all our knowledge, and the entire history of science shows this pattern.

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I should say that the problem today is not, therefore, how we can bring philosophy into science. They were united from their origin. Today we ask how this unity has come to be broken. If we look into the catalogue of any university we find that today science is completely separated from philosophy; the two belong in different "areas" or whatever the administrative divisions are called. Philosophy is generally considered as part of the so-called "humanities." The "sciences" belong to another area which is separate from the "humanities." Thus we have a situation in which quite a few students learn philosophy without knowing any science and others learn science without knowing any philosophy. The question of what one must learn about philosophy to be a competent science teacher can be approached once we have understood how the unity of science and philosophy has been broken and how it happens that they represent two completely different branches of knowledge today. There are many different opinions and I cannot do anything but present my own. It seems to me that there is a long chain of thought leading from immediate sense experience to the most abstract laws which were formerly regarded as self-evident or immediate. As this chain became longer and longer it also became weaker, and eventually it could not help breaking at some point. This happened when it could no longer serve the double purpose that had been required of it: on the one hand, that it be possible to derive from the abstract principles the facts that we observe in physical experiments and make use of in technical applications; on the other hand, that it be possible to use the same abstract principles as a description of our universe that would give us hints about the conduct of men as individuals and as a society. If anyone doubts that it was the abstract end of the chain which was expected to provide information about how to behave or how to run the government, he need only look at any ancient Greek work that treats science on this abstract level. One important example is the Republic of Plato, in which the question arises of the curriculum of the leaders of society. "What," it is

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asked, "should those learn who will rule or be the leaders of the government?" The curriculum suggested includes astronomy and the question is asked why such men should learn astronomy. One reply is that a knowledge of astronomical phenomena is very useful for agriculture, for navigation, and so on. But Socrates, the leading participant, replies that this is a very low view. From astronomy the leaders of society should learn something entirely different. What they should learn from astronomy is that the celestial bodies are composed of an entirely different material from the terrestrial and that this is one of the deepest wisdoms of astronomy. The importance of learning this is that people should be made to prefer spiritual things to material things, for the spiritual is of a higher nature than the material, and without a belief in this no one can be a good citizen. In terms of our image of the chain, we see that the abstract end of it is more important for good citizenship than the concrete end. Therefore, from the time of antiquity it has been an important idea that natural science should be derivable from general principles which are of practical value for ruling and controlling human behavior because they describe the nature of the universe. Another example of this known to everyone is the conflict about the Copernican system. Many people believed that the acceptance of the Copernican system would mean that man and the earth would be removed from the center of the universe, which would endanger the belief in the uniqueness of the earth and of man, not to speak of the belief in Heaven and Hell, which would lose their natural locations. This again exemplifies the idea that the general laws of science are supposed to give us norms for the whole pattern of human behavior. The chain broke because on the. one hand science had to deliver both the technical knowledge needed for engineering and the laws and principles required for moral behavior. The chain did not break in antiquity or the Middle Ages because no one took seriously the requirement that science must provide technical know-how. The wonderful buildings and structures of the ancient

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Egyptians or the Romans, and the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages, were built by people who did not have the slightest idea of theoretical mechanics. The laws that the builders used were not derived from the principles of physics or the general laws of motion that had been developed in Aristotelian philosophy. The laws used had been developed by a tradition of craftsmanship which had little relation to science and just as little to philosophy. In other words, in antiquity and the Middle Ages the break was between craftsmanship or technical know-how on the one hand and philosophy and science on the other. But after the time of Galileo, science became more ambitious and wanted also to embrace applied science, technology, and craftsmanship. Science was envisaged as the foundation for architecture, ballistics, mining, the naval and military arts, and so on. It was at this time that the other end of the chain came in danger of breaking. It developed that the principles which were useful for ruling human beings by presenting a view of the structure of the universe were not very useful for technical applications. On the other hand, the principles that were actually needed for technical applications were not particularly good for characterizing the universe. After Galileo and Newton, there came a time when people said that scientists should restrict themselves to the formulation of such general laws as would provide a basis from which to derive observable facts, particularly those that were needed for technical applications. Scientists were no longer supposed to be interested in whether these general laws were of any use with regard to the moral behavior of man. The "pragmatic or positivistic" idea of science was advanced. This idea held that the one main purpose of science was to provide principles from which the observable facts could be logically deduced. These general principles might be any whatever so long as they fulfilled this purpose. The question whether these general laws were of any use for promoting moral behavior was disregarded. But there is a difficulty in this idea because the observable facts

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do not determine the general principles in an unambiguous way. We can set up different principles from which we can derive the same observable facts. In the time of Copernicus, for example, the observed positions of the planets could be derived from either the Copernican or the Ptolemaic systems, and it was not possible to decide which was right. You may remember perhaps the famous passage in Milton's Paradise Lost in which Adam asked the Archangel Raphael which was true, the Ptolemaic or the Copernican system. And the Archangel said to Adam, "Only God can know of this and human beings should not even ask." The idea was that "science" could not distinguish between these two systems. The distinction between them could only be made on the basis of a higher knowledge. What is this higher knowledge by means of which we can decide between two systems of principles that are equally well adapted to the observable facts? If such a choice is made, there must be a reason for the choice. If the choice is not determined by the empirical and logical evidence, what is the reason why one or the other hypothesis is chosen? We can frequently see one reason: between different hypotheses that are equally well suited for the description of facts one chooses the hypothesis that provides a more pleasant picture of the universe or that makes people better fitted to behave in a certain way. Such a choice is made, so to speak, not on "scientific" grounds but on "humanistic" grounds. It is influenced by the "nature of man," by psychological reasons or, we may say, by sociological reasons. A hypothesis in cosmology is selected in such a way that it may be applicable as a foundation of life. Therefore, we can say: since the general principles, even of a "natural" science, are not uniquely determined by the observed facts, they are influenced by psychological, sociological, political, and religious factors. Generally speaking, we can describe these factors as means of influencing human behavior. We now have a second viewpoint in philosophy, the "humanistic" one. It replaces the other part of the broken chain. If we want to embrace it also in a seien-

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tifie way, then we have to discuss it by asking: what are the reasons that some principles have been chosen, have been developed, have been accepted? To give a scientific answer, we have to go into psychology, history, sociology, and so on. Then we really get a link between science and the humanities because we have to go deep into "humanities" like history, sociology, psychology. We need even psychoanalysis because there are certainly unconscious reasons for choosing a certain hypothesis. In this way we get a certain perspective in the history of philosophy. We understand now why different philosophical systems, different philosophical interpretations of science, have been accepted. If we look on things in this way, we can give a scientific account of the "philosophical interpretation of science" and of a great many aspects of the traditional philosophy. In this way traditional philosophy enters very well into our treatment of the philosophy of science. We have on the one hand the logical and empirical analysis which determines the hypothesis to a certain degree, and on the other hand what is now often called the sociology of science. By considering both viewpoints, not only the empirical and logical viewpoint, but also the other one, which some people call the sociopsychological viewpoint, we can make the traditional philosophical problems understandable to the science student. All philosophical systems are really answers to the question why the scientist believes in certain principles. We have only to put the simple question: We have this experimental evidence which is very small; how does this evidence lead us to such sweeping and general principles? If we discuss this question from all aspects, we get both the empirico-logical aspect and the sociopsychological aspect, which is also, in a certain way, what is traditionally called the "metaphysical" aspect.

The History of Science and the Teaching of Science

THE HISTORY OF S C I E N C E A N D THE T E A C H I N G OF S C I E N C E I. Bernard Cohen

istory without the history of science, to alter slightly an apothegm of Lord Bacon, resembles a statue of Polyphemus without his eye—that very feature being left out which most marks the spirit and life of the person.1 My own thesis is complementary: science taught in General Education without a sense of history is robbed of those very qualities that make it worth teaching to the student of the humanities and the social sciences. In General Education, each teacher of the sciences will, of course, use only so much of history as suits his own inclination, temperament, knowledge, and experience; yet I believe that the deeper and surer the teacher's knowledge of history is, the better will his course be.

H

From the point of view of General Education, the purpose of teaching science is twofold: social and intellectual. This reflects the dual role played by science in our civilization. Science has come to occupy a foremost place among the factors affecting our health, wealth, and security, and producing social change; whether we like it or not, the promotion of science must be a primary concern for all active citizens in a free society. Yet to view the social context of science only in terms of the fruits of science, while ignoring the place of scientific ideas in history, would be a cruel travesty. Since its very inception science has been the delight of the mind, one of the great creations of 1 De augmentis scientiarum, liber secundus, caput iv. Bacon's phrase is rather "historia literarum," the history of letters, or the history of learning, rather than the history of science in the strict sense.

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the human spirit, and its effect on every other branch of human thinking in every age is manifest to all who have eyes to see. As an adventure into the unknown, seeking to explore and explain the phenomena of nature, science has continually produced daring hypotheses and startling conclusions which have been disturbing to established society. Recall that Anaxagoras was imprisoned, fined, and eventually banished for suggesting in a purely materialistic way that the sun is nothing more than a flaming mass of iron, like a meteorite glowing in the heavens; that Galileo was condemned and imprisoned for his advocacy of the doctrine that the sun and not the earth is at the center of the universe; that Darwin's ideas aroused violent hostility in those who thought that evolution implied an ignoble origin of man, contrary to Scripture; and that, in our own time, Einstein was attacked for substituting relativism for revelation and supposedly challenging the existing, absolute standards of ethics and religion. Yes, we need only recall a few such events to appreciate that, even as an intellectual endeavour, science has had a continuing effect on society. Taken over the centuries, scientific ideas have exerted a force on our civilization fully as great as the more tangible practical applications of scientific research. And I would submit that to present science in purely abstract terms as a collection of information or as a system of knowledge, thereby ignoring the place of science in the drama of human history, is simply to rob the students of their own heritage as human beings and to reduce one of the most exciting chapters in the history of mankind to the bare bones of observed fact and the skeletons of dry theories built of them. Of course, it will be clear to all who are scientists as well as teachers that the facts are not nearly so much dry bones, nor the theories so prosaic, as I may have suggested in the preceding sentence. The observed facts revealed by the telescope and the spectroscope, for instance, and the theories used to explain and coordinate such data, enable us to discuss the mass, size, temperature, composition, and internal constitution of stars that are

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millions of light-years away; such knowledge cannot help but excite any serious student of the external world. But I believe that the appreciation of such studies in their complete intellectual integrity is probably in direct proportion to their profundity. Where we deal with students who have already studied mathematics through the calculus, some chemistry, some astronomy, and several years of physics, we can approach advanced problems in the sciences without further ado. But in General Education, we are dealing with a wholly different type of student. Those who take our introductory courses in General Education are freshmen, occasionally sophomores; they know very little mathematics, indeed have notable difficulty with algebra; many have never studied physics or chemistry, much less astronomy, and those who have studied such sciences have all too often found it a deadening experience. Rather than presenting the exciting adventure that science should be, all too many of our secondary schools tend to teach the student how to solve a limited number of numerical problems, ask him to memorize formulas and definitions, and generally overload his mind with dogmatic assertions—while the great adventure of logical deduction, concept formation, and theory construction never enters the classroom. It is no wonder that so many of our students, their minds offended by rote learning, come to us with an open hostility for, and even a hatred of, science.2 They take our courses because of graduation requirements; were the choice left entirely to them, they would for the most part take no science courses at all during their four years of undergraduate study. 1 believe that our function as teachers in General Education is 2 This is, of course, not the only source of hostility. From the essays submitted in my Harvard course, Natural Sciences 3, it is clear that science is often associated in the students' minds with materialism and atheism; that scientists are often thought by them to be vain, egotistical fellows who know all the answers and who ridicule all other people; that science is supposed to be responsible for wars, unemployment, and social unrest, and most of the undesirable aspects of our modern culture or society.

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to help our students to like science; to enable them to enjoy their science course fully as much if not more than their other courses; to give them an understanding of what science is, how scientists work, and what science can and cannot do; to show them the effects of science on society and of society on science. The achievement of these aims implies that the study of science will become meaningful in terms of three levels of experience of our students: ( 1 ) prior to coming to college, ( 2 ) their collegiate experience as a whole, and ( 3 ) as citizens in the world which lies ahead of them after graduation. That some introduction of the history of science serves on each of these three levels to provide a better general education in science than would be possible without any history of science can best be made clear by examples. Let us begin with the first two. In secondary schools all students learn some history, they gain familiarity with the more notable figures in English literature, and they become acquainted with some of the major movements of human thought. This type of study is extended into the college freshman year, during which the student who is not going to be a scientist (with whom alone I am concerned here) continues further his study of history, the social sciences, and the humanities. For the freshman, college is the beginning of a great intellectual experience: all who teach freshman courses know of the passionate discussion of "Big Questions" by freshmen—What is life? What is matter? Is the universe infinite? What is good and what is evil? Are there absolutes, or is everything relative? Does God exist? Is science a blessing or a curse? In science the freshman wants a demonstration of relevance; why should he learn anything he is told, except to pass the next hour exam? Here his previous study of history, and the history he is studying in his other courses, may serve a useful purpose. That the scientific enterprise, or the quest for understanding the world of nature, has been a primary part of the human experience as a whole is made clear when the student finds that Plato

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and Aristotle are not alone philosophers, but must be given their due place in any historical account of Greek science. One need only point to the scientific contributions, or at least the scientific concern, of such men as Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Russell, and Whitehead, for the student to appreciate that science has always been the concern of the best philosophers. Even a passing reference to the execution of Lavoisier, the successful diplomacy of Franklin, Newton's service as M.P. or as Master of the Mint, the Nazi prohibition of non-"Aryan" theoretical physics, or the Russian ban on "bourgeois" Morgan-Mendelian genetics, will make the student aware that scientists have not, in general, been able to live out their lives as a group apart from the historical and political events of their times. Of even greater interest to many students, in terms of the significance of science in our culture, is the impact of scientific ideas on literature, especially if the scientific ideas are set in an historical frame. A discussion of the system of homocentric spheres, or of the Aristotelian dichotomy between sublunar and supralunar matter, may seem at first glance to have no student appeal. Yet these topics will take on a wholly new dimension for the student who reads appropriate selections from the second canto of Dante's Divina Commedia, and this experience will also illumine the reading of Dante from a scientific aspect totally different from that obtained in a literary course. In similar fashion, the ideas of Copernicus, and the stimulating effect of the fantastic discoveries made by Galileo with the newly invented telescope, can be endowed with a more deeply felt reality if the student reads Book II of Milton's Paradise Lost or the opening section of John Donne's Ignatius His Conclave.3 The very fact s Many science teachers are not fully aware of the growing body of scholarly writing on the historical relations of science and literature. In this connection, I would call special attention to the penetrating works of Marjorie Hope Nicolson, which provide in a most interesting way an illumination of this field, especially: "The Telescope and Imagination," Modem Philology 32, 233 (1935); "The 'New Astronomy' and English Literary

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that Voltaire wrote a splendid account of Newtonian physics and celestial mechanics gives the student some comprehension of the importance of science to nonscientists in the eighteenth century and the high level of scientific competence among literary men at that time. Keats was reacting to Herschel's discovery of a new planet, Uranus, in his sonnet on Chapman's Homer, when he invoked the experience of . . . some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken. And in his poem "To the Planet Venus" (1838), Wordsworth wrote: Man now presides In power, where once he trembled in his weakness; Science advances with gigantic strides; though concluding, But are we aught enriched in love and meekness? Even Disraeli related, in Tancred, drawing-room discussions of the latest scientific writings, of the evolution of stars and the earth "explained by geology and astronomy" ["Nobody ever saw a star formed," replied Tancred to Lady Constance], and the development of man from the lower forms of life ["I do not believe I ever was a fish," replied Tancred to this one]. 4 Imagination," Studies in Philology 32, 428 (1935); "Milton and the Telescope," ELH, A Journal of English Literary History 2, 1 (1935); "The microscope and English imagination," Smith College Studies in Modern Languages 16 (4), (1935); "A World in the Moon: A Study of the Changing Attitude toward the Moon in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," Smith College Studies in Modern Languages 17 (2), (1936); Newton Demands the Muse: Newton's "Opticks" and the Eighteenth Century Poets (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946); Voyages to the Moon (New York: Macmillan, 1948); The Breaking of the Circle: Studies in the Effect of the "New Science" upon Seventeenth Century Poetry (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1950). 4 Keats, Wordsworth, and Disraeli, among others, are discussed in Douglas Bush, Science and English Poetry: A Historical Sketch 1590-1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950).

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The introduction of the historical relations of science with philosophy, literature, and theology, and the presentation of science in such a way that the student sees science constantly as a part of our changing culture and society, serve to make the teaching of science interesting and dramatic.5 The scientific enterprise is thereby endowed with humane qualities and is seen as a significant part of the great drama of human existence. The question is sometimes asked of those who value the introduction into science teaching of materials from the history of science and general history: Will the student find sufficient motivation to be willing to study older science rather than absorb only up-to-date scientific knowledge? Such a question is, to my mind, entirely misleading. The science teacher who has no interest in history whatever often thinks of the introduction of historical materials into a science course as piling on the poor student additional subject matter of secondary interest. But if the student is more attracted by history than by science (just the reverse of the situation of such a science teacher), then it is more apt to be the straight science portion of the course that requires motivation, rather than the historical part. Some data are available on the major interests of the students to substantiate this point of view. At present 46 percent of the sophomores, juniors, and seniors in Harvard College have chosen a field of concentration that can, grosso modo, be called historical—including languages and literature, fine arts, music, philosophy, and government, as well as history proper. The remaining students are divided between the natural sciences, 31 percent, and economics and social rela5 I have indicated a few samples of science in relation to literature because they represent an aspect of science not usually well known to science teachers. Many episodes of science in relation to theology may be found in that nineteenth-century classic, Andrew Dickson White's History of the Warfare between Science and Theology, and in numerous specialized studies. Materials on science and society, including historical investigations, are listed currently in a new quarterly publication sponsored by UNESCO, Impact of Science on Society.

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tions, 23 percent. Those who take our General Education courses in the sciences at Harvard do not include the students who concentrate in any of the natural sciences. Of the somewhat less than 70 percent of the college population who are eligible for the General Education courses in the sciences, then, at least twothirds have elected a more or less historical field for undergraduate concentration, thus clearly indicating an historical bent; while the others will take at least two historically oriented courses ( one in the humanities and one in the social sciences ). I do not believe that this situation is markedly different at most other colleges. Any failure, therefore, to capitalize upon the historical aspects of science as a means of arousing the interest and holding the attention of the nonscience student taking a science course for distribution would seem to be a result of a poor presentation of the subject rather than a question of the student's motivation. I believe, then, that we must grant that interest in the subject matter of science can be stimulated by history, by showing the way in which science has been associated with other human activities, the steps by which our present scientific conceptions have gradually evolved, and the colorful personalities of the men who have been responsible for scientific advance. But is there any other value to our students in learning "old, outmoded, and incorrect theories" for the sake of an historical ideal, only to have to unlearn them later and replace them by more modern and "more correct" theories? And even if the student is willing to make such an effort, we must ask whether the effort is itself worth while. I have purposely phrased these questions in the exact words in which I often encounter them—when asked by teachers, not by students. But, clearly, the very choice of words entails a nonhistorical point of view—or, in another sense, a point of view that seems to be at odds with the aims of General Education. Is the history of science nothing but a collection of all the wrong old ideas about nature that have been later replaced by correct ideas? Is it true, by the same token, that we have in-

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corporated all the truths of earlier science into our present science? If we are interested in science, therefore, need we only read current works without bothering about those of another age? The answer to the last of these questions is, usually, "Yes," so long as we limit ourselves to the practice of science—by the theoretician or experimenter, whose sole aim is to add to our knowledge of the world around us and to train others to do likewise. Yet it is to be noted that a very large number of the highest-grade theoretical and experimental scientists have shown a strong interest in general aspects of science (or philosophy) that are related to its history—some names that come to mind are Einstein, Rutherford, Bohr, Bridgman, J. J. Thomson, Hadamard, Weyl, Born, de Broglie, Dubos, Florey, Haldane, and others. But let us be clear about one thing: the historian of science is not interested in merely collecting and describing all of the ideas of science of the past. A good historian of science, if he be worthy of the title historian at all, is not primarily an antiquarian, to be likened to the collector of postage stamps; rather, he is a variety of intellectual historian whose specialized interest happens to be in science. What intrigues him primarily is the genesis and growth of scientific ideas, their filiation one with another, the relation of scientific ideas to the intellectual or cultural or social soil from which they sprang. From the strict point of view of the practicing scientist, a case may be made that the history of science is not a primary essential; at least, the history of science may be less essential than, say, mathematics. Yet I firmly believe that the history of science is useful to the scientist just as it is to the nonscientist. Historians of a generation ago were often shocked at the violence with which scientists rejected the history of their own subject as irrelevant; they could not understand how the members of any academic profession could fail to be intrigued by the study of their own cultural heritage. What these historians did not grasp was that scientists will welcome the history of science only

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when it has been demonstrated that this discipline can add to our understanding of science itself and thus help to produce, in some sense, better scientists. The situation of many science teachers is much the same as that of the scientists I have just been describing. Thus, they may be convinced that some introduction of history makes a science course more palatable to the nonscientist, but their response is then to introduce some historical anecdotes, biographical information, and the like—a kind of "humanistic garnishing"® of the factual material. This is a far cry from the introduction of history in order to "illuminate and vitalize the content with which it is integrated," as recommended by the Harvard University Committee on the Objectives of a General Education in a Free Society. The latter group strongly urged that "The attempt should be made . . . to teach science as part of the total intellectual and historical process, of which, in fact, it has always been an important part. The student should gain thereby an insight into the principles of science . . ." 7 "The claim of General Education is that the history of science is part of science. So are its philosophy, its great literature, and its social and intellectual context. The contribution of science instruction to the life of the university and to society should include these elements, since science includes them . . . " 8 It is, in fact, the aid given to our understanding of science and the scientific enterprise that makes the historical study of science relevant to a General Education course. To assert that the science of the past is characterized by error and the science of the present by truth is not only to deny the validity of the historical evolution of the sciences, but also to assert a rather obvious falsehood about the state of our knowledge today. Indeed, one of the most important qualities of science is its dynamic progress. In every age, some men have thought that their knowledge was final, 6 General Education in a Free Society: Report of the Harvard Committee (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1945), p. 277. T Ibid., p. 277. 8 Ibid., p. 222.

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that progress had reached its culmination with them. Our students should appreciate that science is still on the march and that our scientific knowledge will continue to be revised and expanded; recognizing this general principle is certainly more important than for them to learn any particular aspect of our present knowledge. This leads us directly to the third level of the student's experience, to which we have referred earlier—the relation of our teaching to the life of the student after he leaves college. Few today would dare to deny, or ignore, the ever-growing place of science and the fruits of science in our culture and society. That the college students of the immediate past have not acquired a "sympathetic understanding of science and the way scientific work is done," 9 that theirs has not been "education for citizenship in a scientific age," that their study has scarcely looked forward to a student's "life as a responsible human being and as a citizen," 10 is all too clear when we see in every quarter the misconceptions held by intelligent nonscientists concerning ( i ) what science can do and cannot do, (ii) what the relations are between fundamental science (or the advance of knowledge) and the applied research that produces the tangible fruits of that knowledge, and (iii) to what degree planning is feasible in either; and similar problems. Further evidence of the failure of our traditional science courses is afforded by the current popularity of books that present a pseudo science, or a travesty of science, or even a frontal attack on science. The aim of General Education in the sciences has been described as "an intensive study of certain topics or certain phases of a problem . . . intended to introduce the student to that same sort of appreciation or understanding that comes to those who have studied some branch of knowledge with profit for many 9 Eric Rogers, in E. J. McGrath, ed., Science in General Education (Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Company, 1948), p. 9. 10 General Education in a Free Society, p. 51.

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years."11 If this be our aim, our students need to learn more than observed facts and theories. They need to study certain scientific episodes in full, that is, in their complete intellectual and cultural setting. Why, for example, do we ask that our students study the free fall of bodies? Not, surely, because this is one of the most important physical phenomena, but because it can in some way illuminate the student's understanding of what science is and does. It is for such reasons that we introduce the Galilean concepts and their relation to the observed facts provided by experiment or experience. But how can the student grasp the significance of Galileo's work if he has no acquaintance with the ideas about motion that Galileo had first to attack and only eventually to replace? 12 Never mind whether the historical evidence does or does not support the anecdote about Galileo and the Leaning Tower of Pisa; 13 what is of greater significance is the reason why most people at that time held to ideas that were not verifiable by experience. Some teachers are historically sophisticated enough to know that the decisive experiment of Galileo's was not the dropping of 1 1 James B. Conant, The President's Report, Harvard University, 1949, p. 11. President Conant adds: "Only an introduction is possible in a single course. Whether with this introduction a student will in later life go further by reading and study is, of course, a matter of speculation. A certain percentage will; that much is clear. To increase that percentage might be one restricted and narrow definition of the aim of each of the elementary courses in General Education." 12 It is on this point that we have recently had new information provided by scholarly research in the history of science. See M. Clagett, "Some General Aspects of Physics in the Middle Ages," Isis 39, 29 (1948); E. Moody, "Medieval Dynamics," Scientific Monthly 72, 18 (1951); A. Koyré, Etudes Galiléennes (Paris; Hermann, 1939), particularly pt. 1, L'aube de la science classique; Α. Maier, Die Vorläufer Galileis in 14. Jahrhundert (Rome: Edizioni di "Storia e Letteratura," 1949); C. B. Boyer, Concepts of the Calculus (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939; reprinted by Hafner Pub. Co.), pp. 82 ff.; etc. 1 3 Evidence on this oft-debated point may be found in Lane Cooper, Aristotle,'Galileo, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1935). See also I. B. Cohen, "A Sense of History in Science," Am. J. Physics 18, 343 (1950).

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weights from the Tower of Pisa in the presence of an assembled multitude. That particular demonstration could at most only prove that Aristotle had been wrong in asserting that the speed of bodies falling freely in air (or any other resisting medium) must be proportional to their weights; it could not provide an adequate test of Galileo's own formulation of the laws of motion. When Galileo had decided that the acceleration of free fall is constant, that is, that the speed of a freely falling body is proportional to the time of fall, he had recourse to a wholly different experiment. An analysis of the latter is of great importance in the general education of the student; it shows him what an experiment is, how it is performed, and why an experimental test is not always decisive for those who do not wish to accept the premises of the experimenter. 14 14 Even with the wonderful array of modern laboratory devices, we cannot devise an experimental test for our students to show them by direct observation that a body falling freely in a vacuum will attain a speed proportional to the time of fall. Like Galileo, in studying "uniformly accelerated motion," we can but measure the displacement (or distance) as a function of time and show that it is proportional to the square of the time. Since the statement that speed is proportional to the time leads to the statement that distance is proportional to the square of the time, and since the latter can be demonstrated by experiment, we assume that the statement about speed being proportional to time is true. In other words, since the equation

«=|αί2

(i)

can be deduced mathematically from the equation v = at, (ii) where α is a constant, we assume that the experimental verification of Eq. (i) implies the validity of Eq. (ii). A genuine analysis of Galileo's work involves a number of questions of extraordinary interest for a General Education course. The experiment Galileo described consisted of studying the motion of a sphere rolling freely down an inclined, grooved plane. Apart from the problem of whether he actually performed such an experiment (or, if he did, whether he reported the results accurately), there is the question of how Galileo related motion on an inclined plane to free fall (involving the concept of composition of "vector" quantities, terminal velocities, etc.), and the interpretation of his results. But the most interesting question of all is how Galileo derived Eq. (i) from Eq. (ii). By a long chain of reasoning, including the use of the well-

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A truly penetrating historical analysis indicates clearly the unreality of the idea that in science one is always performing crucial experiments that clearly discriminate between two opposing theories. This widely held misconception is akin to a belief in "the scientific method"—a series of simple rules that scientists follow and that lead them to great discoveries. A discussion of how the discoveries of the past were actually made would quickly dispel any notions of a method to be followed in the manner that a chef follows the recipe in his cookbook. Traditionally, teachers of the sciences have claimed that their courses have taught the students "rigorous thinking," or "creative" or "critical" thinking, or "the scientific method." P. W . Bridgman speaks for many of us when he writes that there is no such thing as the scientific method, that in so far as there is any method to science at all, it consists of nothing more than doing "one's damnedest with one's mind, no holds barred."

15

The belief that

there exists a simply definable scientific method is often found among teachers. The reason, I believe, is that a distortion and gross oversimplification of science's development has made it

known medieval theorem that the motion of a uniformly accelerated body starting from rest covers the same distance as a motion with a constant speed equal to the mean of the initial and terminal velocities in the case of the accelerated motion, Galileo presented a satisfactory argument in his Two New Sciences. Yet we know that at an earlier date Galileo presented what seemed at the time an equally satisfactory proof that if the speed is proportional to the displacement or distance ( ! ) then the distance is proportional to the square of the time. In other words, Galileo derived the observed law of displacement from a wholly incorrect "law" of velocity. Keeping in mind this early derivation (found in a letter to Sarpi dated 16 October 1604) when presenting the later, correct derivation (published in Two New Sciences in 1638), the instructor of a General Education course will not give the false impression to his students that truth in science is obvious, that proofs are simple and straightforward, or that experiments give to scientific questions unique answers that are unaffected by considerations outside the realm of experiment, such as logical processes, mathematical deductions, and the like, which may lead the scientist to two quite opposite conclusions on the basis of the same experimental data. 15 P. W. Bridgman, Yale Review 34, 444 (1945).

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seem as if all the great scientific discoveries followed simple and similar over-all patterns. There has been a conspicuous neglect of the importance of the intellectual and social climate of the age, of the relation of each discovery to the total state of scientific knowledge at the time, and the relevant changes or innovations in both knowledge and technique that condition each scientific discovery. A deeper understanding of the history of science shows the numerous different ways in which the great discoveries have been made; these have been denoted as the "tactics and strategy" of science, and their exemplification may serve as the base of a course in the sciences in General Education, or, more simply, as a foundation for understanding science.16 Actually, I believe that one of the aims of General Education in science is to make clear that there is no "scientific method," no simple, clear-cut, easily definable procedure which, once specified, may be followed as by rote. That there is no royal road to scientific discovery may be seen in the multitude of baffling problems which the scientists of our own day have not solved and concerning which no one knows with certainty how, or in which direction, to proceed. This lesson is of extreme importance in the scientific General Education of the future social scientist, for if the latter has the misunderstanding that the scientist has a method but won't share it with social scientists, or if he believes that progress in the social sciences merely depends on defining and 1 6 See J. B. Conant, On Understanding Science: An Historical Approach (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1 9 4 7 ) , passim, describing such a possible course. President Conant has revised that book into a general work for the nonscientific reader, under the title, Science and Common Sense ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 1 9 5 1 ) . Four pamphlets containing original source material and historical interpretation, which may be used as assigned reading for students or for the general education of the science teacher, have been issued b y the Harvard University Press inaugurating the "Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science" under the general editorship of President Conant. These are ( 1 ) Robert Boyle's Experiments in Pneumatics and ( 2 ) The Overthrow of the Phlogiston Theory: The Chemical Revolution of 1775-1789, both prepared b y James Bryant Conant, ( 3 ) The Early Development of the Concepts of Temperature and Heat: The Rise and Decline of the Caloric Theory, prepared by Duane Roller, and ( 4 ) The AtomicMolecular Theory, prepared b y Leonard K. Nash,

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clarifying the magic "method" of the natural scientist, his work is doomed to tragic failure. Even the best experiments must be interpreted in terms of theoretical presuppositions; the role of ideas in science is of supreme importance. This can be illustrated for our students by showing them how often the results of experience do not lead in a simple manner to the correct conclusion. An example from antiquity: Aristotle reasoned that, if a vacuum were possible, all bodies falling freely in the vacuum would fall at the same rate; since this was contrary to his own presuppositions about the speed of falling bodies, he concluded that a vacuum is an impossibility; when Boyle perfected the vacuum pump, he showed that Aristotle had been correct, that in a vacuum a feather and a guinea did not fall at speeds proportional to their weights, but rather they both fell at the same speed. An example from modern times: At the close of the nineteenth century many experimenters were using Crookes tubes and discovered that their photographic plates, when developed, were fogged; Crookes himself concluded that the plates had been imperfectly manufactured and began to purchase them from another maker; others traced the fogging to the action of the tube and established a rule in the laboratory that photographic plates should never be stored in the neighborhood of a Crookes tube; after Roentgen had discovered the x-rays, the phenomenon was traced to its source. Clearly, the student in General Education, if he really is to understand science, must know about the false trails as well as the great discoveries. I do not mean the hoaxes, such as Kämmerers famous toad which supposedly showed the inheritance of acquired characters but which was exposed by Noble as a fraudulent or "doctored" specimen,11 although some of these 17 See Conway Zirkle, Death of a Science in Russia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949), pp. 16 ff., for a lucid, critical account of the Kammerer case. Paul Kammerer described his "work" in The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics, translated by A. Paul Maerker-Branden (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1924). The author's preface discusses the reasons he believes are responsible for the denial of his doctrines, ". , ,

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would be useful for study in a General Education course. I mean, rather, the way in which apparently sincere and honest men seem to be misled. We have an example in the twentieth century in the supposed discovery of "mitogenetic radiation" by Gurwitch, which eventually proved unobservable outside Russia,18 or the more famous case of the supposed "N-rays" which were exposed by R. A. Wood. Today many scientists still believe that the discoverer of the "N-rays," Blondlot, was the perpetrator of a fraud. This is not the case at all. The evidence shows clearly that Blondlot was a sincere man who deluded himself; his accounts were published in the leading scientific journal in France and the phenomena were thought to have been seen by other French physicists, including young Becquerel whose father had discovered radioactivity,19 before they were finally shown to be nonexistent found partly in the development of our science and partly, even, in the development of our political situation." A summary of his "results" may be found in "Adaptation and Inheritance in the Light of Modem Experimental Investigation," Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution, 1912 (Washington, 1913), pp. 421-441. Further documents may be found in Nature 103, 344 (1919); 111, 738 (1923); 112, 391, 899 (1923); 118, 209 (1926). 18 A report of investigations attempting "to prove or to disprove the existence of the so-called 'mitogenetic rays' . . . defined as ultraviolet radiation of the wave lengths 1900 to 2500A, of an intensity of 10 to 1000 quanta/cm 2 /sec emitted by biological materials in certain stages of development, and also by chemical reactions" may be found in Arthur Hollaender and Walter D. Claus, "An Experimental Study of the Problem of Mitogenetic Radiation," Washington, D. C., Bulletin National Research Council, No. 100 (1937); a complete bibliography is appended. In view of the negative results of attempting to detect this radiation, a particular interest attaches to the authors' introductory statement: "The problem of determining the reliability of the evidence regarding the existence of mitogenetic radiation was approached rather from an affirmative point of view; that is, the purpose of this work was to attempt to prove the existence of mitogenetic rays. To approach the problem presupposing that the mitogenetic ray phenomenon did not exist, might have prejudiced us and might have made a fair investigation less probable." The discussion of this procedural precept would be of great value in showing students the role of the scientist in science; does not the second sentence in the quotation make it seem that in the first the authors "protest too much"? 19 An account of the rise and fall of the "N-rays" may be found in the biography of Robert W. Wood: William Seabrook, Doctor Wood: Modern Wizard of the Laboratory (New York; Harcourt, Brace, 1941), pp. 234ff. Cf. Wood's classic letter on the illusory character of "N-rays" in Nature 70,

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by Wood. The introduction of such episodes helps our students to see that, at times, the observations and experiments in science are subject to all the frailties of any human enterprise. How strongly the interpretation of experiments and observations is biased by preconceptions is made abundantly clear by a study of the conflict between the epigenesists and the preformationists (or "evolutionists" as they preferred to call themselves) in the eighteenth century. Albrecht von Haller's important studies on the development of the chick embryo might well have provided a striking confirmation of the process of epigenesis; but the fact of the matter is that those very observations convinced Haller all the more of preformation.20 Research often depends on what the scientist expects to find. The success of Baer in discovering the mammalian ovum was in considerable measure due to the work of Purkinje who, two years earlier, had discovered the germinal vesicle in the egg of the chick.21 The mammalian ovum is smaller than the eggs of chickens and oviparous fishes, or of insects and other invertebrates, because the eggs of the latter are expelled from the parent's body and must be selfsufficient, containing all the food necessary to build up the embryo. But the germinal part of the chick egg is very much like that of the mammal and the recognition of it for what it was 530 ( 1 9 0 4 ) . See also, R. Blondlot, "Ν" Rays: A Collection of Papers Communicated to the Academy of Sciences. With Additional Notes and Instructions for the Construction of Phosphorescent Screens. With Phosphorescent Screen and Other Illustrations, translated by J. Garcin (London: Longmans, Green, 1905). The translator calls attention to his endeavor "to preserve that simplicity and straightforwardness which render the original a model of scientific exposition . . . [and] hopes that . . . the reader will be enabled to follow the successive stages of thought in the mind of the discoverer as he progresses from experiment to experiment in a hitherto unexplored domain. If this hope be fulfilled, the book will be welcome not only to those who desire to make acquaintance with 'N-rays,' but also to all lovers of scientific research, as well as to beginners who wish to attain to scientific methods." 2 0 Cf. F . J. Cole, Early Theories of Sexual Generation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 3 0 ) . 2 1 Cf. G. Sarton, " T h e Discovery of the Mammalian E g g and the Foundation of Modern Embryology," Isis 16, 315 ( 1 9 3 1 ) .

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made the very existence of a microscopic-sized mammalian ovum plausible. Among other myths to be demolished is that of the scientist as an exalted being, one who loves truth above all else and who willingly surrenders his most precious ideas when the evidence against them is presented to him. Dalton, one would think, might have welcomed the work of Avogadro as putting the atomic theory on a more secure and unambiguous basis; he did not.22 Baer, who discovered the mammalian egg, and who also found that the ontogenetic process is such that the embryo of the higher forms develops through stages that resemble the lower forms, might have been a champion of the theory of evolution and the famous law that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny; but he abhorred the doctrine of evolution. Ernst Mach, whose critical ideas about time and space were of supreme importance to Einstein's theory of relativity, might have been expected to become one of the first supporters of relativity; but he openly disclaimed any responsibility for the new theory, which was clearly wrong in his mind.23 Why is it important for our students to recognize that scientists err, that they stick to their preconceptions as long as possible and often longer than seems wise? The answer lies in this third level of experience for the nonscientist: after leaving college. I assume that such a student is interested in seeing to it that more discoveries are made, if not for love of science, then at least so that he may personally reap the benefit of the applications that will be made of new discoveries. If this be so, then he should know what a discovery is and how discoveries are actually made. 2 2 This is discussed in the article by Leonard Nash, immediately following this one. 2 3 Einstein expresses his debt to Mach in his "Autobiographical Notes" in P. A. Schilpp, ed., Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. VII (Evanston: Library of Living Philosophers, Inc., 1949), p. 21. Mach expressed disapproval of his "gradually becoming regarded as the forerunner of relativity" in the preface to Principles of Physical Optics: An Historical and Philosophical Treatment, translated by J. S. Anderson and A F. A. Young (London: Methuen, 1926).

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This knowledge is implicit in the history of science, and the only way to teach it to the student is to teach him some history of science. Furthermore, it is highly important for our students to appreciate that in almost all scientific research probably ninety-nine per cent of the work done is fruitless, and that if one per cent of it leads to important or useful results the investigator will consider himself extremely fortunate. The present habit of reporting successful research in brief impersonal style does not allow us to gain any insight into the failures that preceded the success. In older scientific writing, when authors were not restricted by high printing costs, and when it was still possible to write personal rather than impersonal scientific prose, as in the case of Faraday's publications, one can see the creative process at work. One can see the false starts, the incorrect assumptions and conclusions, the fumbling that eventually took direction and that led to fruitful conceptions and revealing experiments. In brief, it is only in older science that the student is given the opportunity to learn what really happens in the course of scientific research. The usefulness of such knowledge to citizens in a scientific age should need no defense. Even if one is willing to accept the proposition that a full understanding of science is impossible without some history of science, the question remains of how much history should be included in a science course in General Education. Although a historian of science myself, I do not for a moment believe that a course in the history of science should be substituted for an introductory science course.24 I would set as a minimum standard 24 In discussions of General Education, the important distinction between a course in the history of science and an introductory course in science based on the historical approach is often lost. The introductory course in science is, no matter what the title may be, a science course; it demands the memorization of definitions, the solution of numerical problems, derivations, etc. The emphasis is placed on giving the student scientific education, and history may be used as a motivating factor in attracting student attention, or as a means of making plain by example certain important aspects

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that students be given some idea of the general progress of science, so that they may learn of the evolution of methods of investigation, of the communication and dissemination of scientific information, and the development of standards or canons of scientific knowledge, particularly with regard to experimental evidence. Galileo, who was hardly an empiricist in the strict sense of the nineteenth century, described many experiments that he never made. He praised Copernicus for having sustained his belief in the heliocentric theory of the universe since he knew it of the scientific enterprise, or as a source for providing the student with original texts that are within his comprehension. In On Understanding Science, President Conant points out many virtues in using case material (edited selections from original scientific documents) from earlier science rather than current science: ". . . first, relatively little factual knowledge is required either as regards the science in question or other sciences, and relatively little mathematics; second, in the early days one sees in clearest light the necessary fumblings of even intellectual giants when they are also pioneers; one comes to understand what science is by seeing how difficult it is in fact to carry out glib scientific precepts." In a very real sense, recourse to the history of science is a result of considerations of practicality to a greater extent than interest in history as such. By contrast, the history of science is a part of history, a special area of intellectual and social history. Whereas the General Education course in the sciences is usually planned for freshmen or sophomores and taught by a scientist, the course in the history of science is usually planned for juniors, seniors, and graduate students and is taught by a trained historian or historian of science. Study of the history of science by upperclassmen and graduate students is, therefore, to be compared to study of the history of philosophy, of political theory, etc. Just as a General Education course in the social sciences may include more intellectual history than a conventional course in political history, but does not provide a substitute for later study of intellectual history, so a science course set in a historical frame does not provide a substitute for later study of the history of science. For the nonscience student, who has had a General Education course in the sciences, a course in the history of science will broaden his understanding of intellectual, cultural,· and social history in relation to his own chosen field: literature, sociology, philosophy, history. For the science concentrator, who will not ( at least at Harvard ) have had a General Education course in science, a course in the history of science will provide him with the cultural background of his own field. Some instruction in the history of science for advanced science students will remove the paradoxical situation in which the science student knows more science than the student of the humanities and the social students, but less about the scientific enterprise as a whole, its historical evolution, philosophical and cultural aspects, and its place in our modem society or civilization.

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to be correct in spite of the fact that the predictions of his theory were in open disagreement with observations. In discussing the experiment of measuring the distance traveled in accelerated motion along an inclined plane, which we have mentioned earlier, Galileo did not give the data of the actual experiment, but merely reported that the results agreed with theory, to a degree of accuracy that is for us beyond the bounds of belief. When his contemporary admirer Mersenne tried to duplicate the result to that degree of accuracy, he could only conclude that Galileo had not actually done the experiment at all! A generation later, Boyle chided Pascal for describing experiments that could not actually be performed, for instance, one involving a man who sat under water totally submerged; yet, even Boyle accepted uncritically a belief that certain gems have specific curative powers, explaining the latter in terms of the corpuscular hypothesis as due to a material emanation. But by the middle of the eighteenth century, repeatability was becoming an accepted canon of experimentation. Dufay, who discovered the two varieties of electric charge, resinous and vitreous, began the report of his own discoveries by describing how his first step had been to repeat carefully the experiments on conduction that had previously been performed by Gray. Any teacher of General Education courses in the sciences can profit by an over-all knowledge of the growth of the scientific enterprise, if only to enable him to set his discussion in a general framework of history. This end can be readily attained by reading any survey of the history of science, such as those written by Charles Singer, F. Sherwood Taylor, E. P. Wightman, or Sir William Dampier, especially if such reading is supplemented by a work on intellectual history, such as those written by John Herman Randall, Jr., or Crane Brinton.25 I would especially recommend Herbert Butterfield's Origins of Modern Science, a 25 J. H. Randall, Jr., The Making of the Modern Mind (rev. ed.; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1 9 4 0 ) ; Crane Brinton, Ideas and Men (New York: Prentice Hall, 1 9 5 0 ) . Books on the history of science are discussed in the article by F. G. Kilgour, below.

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work on the most crucial period of scientific history (from late medieval [pre-Galilean] dynamics to the eighteenth century), that has the exceptional merit of being one of the few books on the history of science written as history. That even those who teach more conventional courses will profit by such reading will, I think, be made manifest by trial. In addition to the need of having some kind of historical frame in which to set the discussion of science, certain biographical information about the great scientists should also be presented, to exhibit the man behind the discovery, and to let students see what scientists are like, how they work, the relation of their creative activity to their personalities, and the way in which the scientific thinking of every discoverer is related to the preconceptions and cultural matrix of his age. Finally, certain selected topics should be studied in full historical dress, although the number to be so treated must depend on the individual teacher. In the latter statement, I mean history in the true sense. These is nothing to be gained by showing our students puppets and not recreating for them the live flesh-andblood characters of history. It is important for our students to accept the fundamental premise of the history of science: namely, that the men of the past were as bright as the men of the present. To be sure, the college senior of today may know more physics than Archimedes and Newton, but he surely is not more intelligent. When we find, therefore, that men in the past have acted in a way incomprehensible to us, it is important for us to find out why. Thus, we inquire why men continued to cling to the old caloric theory rather than accept the dynamic theory of heat in the early nineteenth century,2® why the phlogiston theory persisted even though it eventually entailed a belief in a substance of negative weight, or why the men of science in Galileo's day and earlier believed in laws of falling bodies that could have been shown to be incorrect 26 S. Lillie, "Attitudes to the Nature of Heat about the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century," Archives Int. de l'Hist. des Sciences ( 1948), p. 630.

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by the simplest kind of experiment. Equally revealing for our understanding of the scientific enterprise is the long delay in the recognition of the Mendelian laws of heredity. This last example shows the important lesson to be learned from studying real history, rather than imagined history. Gregor Mendel did his experiments during an eleven-year period from about 1857 to 1868, and his works were published in 1866 and 1869. It is often said in biology textbooks that the reason why these laws were not generally known is that Mendel was a monk, working in an out-of-the-way place, who published his ideas in an obscure journal, and was not in communication with other scientists. Yet, when we look at the facts, we find that this wasn't so at all. In the first place, he was a graduate of the University of Vienna; he was in correspondence with Karl von Nageli, who was not only a leading biologist, but one who was very much concerned with problems of heredity. We also know that when Mendel's work was rediscovered in 1900 by three observers, two of them, Correns and DeVries, easily found the work of Mendel. When they looked back through the literature to see if there was anything like what they had been doing, they were able to find about Mendel's work without much difficulty; for example, a striking reference had appeared in Focke's Pflanzenmischlinge (1881). Focke had learned of Mendel through a book he had been reading in the seventies. Mendel's work made no impact for wholly different reasons than obscurity of the medium of publication.27 A certain number of science teachers believe that historical accuracy is not important in teaching science. The answer to their point of view takes us back to the reason for introducing history in the first place. Our aim is to teach our students how scientific progress has actually been accomplished, not how it might have been accomplished according to the imagination of 27 Cf. Hugo litis, Life of Mendel, translated by Eden and Cedar Paul (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1932), chs. 20, 21. Also Conway Zirkle, "Gregor Mendel & his Predecessors," Isis 42, 97 ( 1 9 5 1 ) .

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the teacher, and the relation of scientific progress to the social and intellectual temper of the age, not what this relation might have been. Inaccurate history, so-called imagined history, defeats the very purpose of introducing historical material. Of course, the scientist who is not a trained historian will make many mistakes. Some will be minor errors of date, place, and so on; these are not too serious. What matters is that the temper and character of the age and the events be presented in a reasonably accurate fashion. Some reading in the original literature of science, as well as in works that show the effect of scientific discoveries, is essential. The amount of such material assigned will depend, once again, on the individual teacher and also on the availability of textual material. Often the great documents are beyond the comprehension of the student; thus, Newton's Principia, one of the greatest achievements of the human spirit, is largely unreadable to all but specialists, but the Opticks is understandable to a far greater number of readers. Such texts need careful editing, a problem discussed in the article immediately following. To conclude: the introduction of a certain amount of historical material in a General Education course in the sciences tends to make the scientific content of that course meaningful to the student in terms of his other studies and interests, and helps him to understand the nature of science and of the scientific enterprise in a way that is otherwise impossible of achievement. The minimum recommendation is that the student be given a general idea of the growth of the sciences, both the internal development of the sciences themselves and the history of the relations of the sciences to other human activities. Some episodes should be studied in full, with reading assigned in original documents, even though the bulk of the course may not be taught in a fully historical manner. Most of us may not be willing to subscribe to Goethe's doctrine that the history of science is science itself. Yet, surely, teachers of General Education may agree with Mach

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that just as the essence of classical education is historical education, so there is for the sciences a special classical education which consists in learning the historical development of the sciences.28 Just as political history enriches our understanding of world events, so the history of science may help us better to understand the nature of the scientific enterprise. 2 8 Ernst Mach, History and Root of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy, translated by P. Ε. B. Jourdain (Chicago: Open Court Publication Co., 1911), pp. 17-18.

T H E U S E OF H I S T O R I C A L CASES IN SCIENCE

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Leonard K. Nash

he position to be allotted the history of science in a General Education science course can be considered only in terms of the objectives of that course. The relatively limited objective of the course with which I am associated is to present science as a part of our civilization (but not simply as the basis of technology), as a rich part of our cultural heritage, and as one of the intensely creative aspects of human endeavor. Leaving aside all question of a possible carry-over of scientific thinking into other areas, it appears that an increase in the public understanding and appreciation of science is itself a goal of sufficient importance to justify a considerable effort. That is, the attempt to foster an understanding of science appears to be as well justified as any attempt to increase the understanding of any other of the long-term creative efforts of man. It seems to us that a major step toward the understanding of science can be taken through an intensive study of the lessons implicit in selected episodes of scientific history. In these illustrations can be discerned a number of continuing elements in the scientific enterprise—elements dealing with its dynamics, its various bases, its capabilities, and its limitations. Some grasp of these elements, we feel sure, represents a real advance toward an apprehension of the character of science.

T

In planning our presentation there are two points that we hold ever before us: ( 1) we must not teach scientific facts and theories for their own sake, but as a means toward the end of understanding science; and ( 2 ) we must not hope to teach the persistent

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characteristics of the scientific enterprise in a pat, capsulated form—that is, "the scientific method." Thus we face the task of presenting various illustrative examples, with all their attendant raw material of facts and fancies; and, through an intensive examination of these illustrations, we try to guide our students to some recognition of the recurrent basic patterns of scientific endeavor and of the real-life complexity that attends any of their specific manifestations. "The Scientific Method' an Artifact of Traditional Teaching It has often been claimed that the traditional specialists' courses are really the best way of inculcating some appreciation of the nature of science. Is such a claim justified in courses primarily concerned with the facts, theories, and contemporary status of a highly developed and abstruse science? At this point there is some risk of confusing the nature of science with the content of science. It is possible to learn much about the content of science without securing any real appreciation of the nature of science. But it also seems possible, and infinitely more valuable to the nonspecialist, to gain some understanding of the nature of science while mastering only a relatively small proportion of the subject matter of science. Though highly successful in teaching the content of a given science, the specialists' courses are all too often completely unsuccessful in inculcating a conception of what science is about, how scientists work, and what the real character of the scientific enterprise is. To be sure, these specialists' courses usually pretend to teach something about "the scientific method." But, by and large, their subject matter is highly static and elaborately developed material that is remote from the scientific frontiers—which are the only places where we might learn by seeing the supposed "method" in action. For the most part these courses simply equate "the scientific method" with a complex of deductive and purely technique operations of science, without

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giving any intimation of the crucial and complex inductive leaps that are involved in scientific progress. Surely there is little doubt that some parts of the so-called "scientific method" can be defined. These are the formal mechanical operations of observing without prejudice, experimenting without fear or favor, the test of public verifiability, and so forth. But there is usually an almost total neglect of the really challenging aspects of the scientific endeavor—the "simple" matter of recognizing what the problem is, the "simple" problem of recognizing the relevant variables, the "simple" operations of framing reasonable hypotheses and of devising "unequivocal" experiments by which to test these hypotheses. There is so much here of art, rather than of science in the usual sense, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to include these considerations in what is commonly regarded as "the scientific method." Yet it is just the sense of these creative operations—the nuances that engender them, their subtlety and their strengths and weaknesses—that must be conveyed to the student if he is to acquire any appreciation of the nature of science. Specialists' courses seldom engender this appreciation—indeed, very probably they cannot, because of the weight of their other responsibilities. Nevertheless, their claim to teach "the scientific method" is still energetically maintained. It appears that a considerable distortion of scientific history has grown out of a more or less concerted attempt to sustain this claim. That is, scientific history has been "edited" to make it agree with the preconception of "the scientific method" as no more than the accumulation and calm coordination of factual information. Professor Cohen has referred to the Tower of Pisa legendAristotelian physics overthrown with one stroke of experimental observation. Such fables are no less prevelant in chemistry than in physics. For example, there is the attempt to explain away the long delay in the development of the oxygen theory of combustion by the propagation of the fable that Lavoisier was the first to make effective use of the analytical balance. Thus it

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is suggested that the gain of weight on calcination of metals had not previously been recognized, a most convenient suggestion which seems to resolve a very serious problem. For, though most textbooks say that it is obvious from the gain of weight on calcination that something, presumably from the air, has been added to the metal, this conclusion was very far from obvious to the keenest minds during most of the eighteenth century. The problem is finessed when it is implied that Lavoisier discovered the all-powerful "fact" and, presto, the oxygen theory was born. Indeed, the real story is far from being as dull as this. Though it takes a great deal of study before it can be "understood," it is both interesting and instructive. The balance had been in more or less constant use for more than a century before Lavoisier's work, and that metals gained in weight on calcination had been vaguely known for 1000 years. Rough quantitative data on the gain of weight accompanying the calcination of a number of metals had been available, from a number of sources, for at least a century before Lavoisier's work. Nor were these the only previously known data that ultimately contributed to the foundation of the oxygen theory. That a candle was soon extinguished when it burned in a water-sealed chamber had been known for about 1500 years, and that the water would rise after the candle was extinguished had also been observed. That charcoal and metals did not "waste" when they were heated in a sealed vessel from which the air had previously been pumped was known to Boyle, Hooke, and Mayow—a hundred years before Lavoisier. Even more significant, these earlier investigators considered the possibility that there might be a "nitro-aereal" component in the atmosphere that was similar to something in common nitre. This suggestion grew out of the observation that nitre would support combustion and calcination even in the absence of air, as well as from the observed similarity of the products obtained by combustion in air and on fused nitre. Oxygen was prepared, though its special properties were not recognized, a half-century before Lavoisier began his work.

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All these and a multitude of other "facts" lay fallow for the better part of a century. They did not guarantee the development of an oxygen theory, though they lay close to the basis of the ultimate denouement. A facile explanation of this situation in terms of "the scientific method," based on no more than a manipulation of facts, is difficult if not impossible. A scrutiny of the factors that contributed to this long delay reveals a whole series of fascinating considerations. These are certainly not as "easy" as the ones usually mentioned, but their examination is infinitely more rewarding. The Aristotelian idea of the elements, a number of doctrines connected with alchemy, several commonplace observations in practical metallurgy, a variety of metaphysical loyalties and repugnances—all of these played a part. If we can give our students some idea of the subtle interplay of influences that almost inevitably, all the "facts" notwithstanding, led scholars toward a phlogiston theory rather than toward an oxygen theory, we have probably given them a rather fundamental grasp of one important aspect of the scientific enterprise. In the case of the phenomena of combustion and calcination, about 100 years elapsed before the "correct" interpretation of the "facts" was formulated. But this long delay is scarcely more remarkable than the five years' delay in recognizing the phenomenon of nuclear fission as distinct from the creation of transuranic elements. Considering the advanced state of scientific sophistication, the enormous armamentarium of ideas and equipment applied to the modern problem, the very clear "facts" that were available, it is impossible to suppose that this five-year delay arose from anything but the same sort of involuntary blindness that produced the 100-year postponement in the development of the oxygen theory. To make the parallelism complete, even as there were early intimations of something like an oxygen theory (for example, in the rather confused ideas of Mayow), the real possibility of fission was seriously proposed, and wholly ignored, years before the final resolution of the problem in 1939. Another conspicuous misreading of history is found in the ac-

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count usually given of the development of the atomic theory. It is often said that Dalton's theory was little more than a reasonable inference drawn from the laws of definite, multiple, and reciprocal proportions. But Dalton's theory was formulated at a time when the first of these laws had come under serious fire, when the second was as yet undiscovered, and when the third was almost certainly unknown to him. The formulation of Dalton's atomic theory was far from being the orderly, essentially reasonable procedure that "the scientific method" is supposed to follow. It appears, in fact, that Dalton's atomic theory was founded on an almost completely erroneous line of reasoning based on some largely irrelevant physical phenomena. It is one of those cases, so distressing to the proponents of "the scientific method," of a correct conclusion based on unsound premises. This does violence to the common preconceptions of what science is or, rather, should be, and the story unfolded to students is usually carefully expurgated, and thereby deprived of much of its value. Similarly, textbooks usually imply that there was an uninterrupted march of the chemical atomic theory from the time of Avogadro down to the present. It is understandable that there should be an attempt to convince the students that, once created, such an essentially reasonable and highly useful conception as the atomic theory should never have been doubted. Yet the fact is that, about 1840, this theory was in real danger of being discarded as a speculative fancy that had outworn its infant usefulness. And it should be noted that the postponement of the final triumph of the atomic theory was due not so much to a shortage of facts as to a superabundance of facts that, at the time, seemed to require an unreasonable stretching of the atomic hypothesis. The ultimate acceptance of the atomic theory appears to have been associated with an enlarged understanding of what might represent a "reasonable" explanation of these facts, as well as with the discovery of new facts. One could easily multiply these instances. They all present difficulties of understanding that are not ameliorated by the

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patent nostrum of "the scientific method." Perhaps we would do better to look history in the face, honestly trying to see and comprehend what actually took place instead of inventing pretty but stultifying fables. Burdened with its many other responsibilities, a specialist's course can hardly afford the time required for a realistic appraisal of the lessons of scientific history. An entirely different approach, centered on the detailed examination of these lessons, is that followed in our general education course. The Case Approach: Empirical Evidence Instead of Traditional Dogma I have already suggested that we wish to distinguish and stress certain continuing patterns in scientific endeavor. Perhaps these can be called the scientific methods, or, if you wish, you can group them all as the scientific method. Unfortunately this seems to involve a resort to so high a level of abstraction that the value of the definition so obtained is in some doubt. Somewhere I have met with this definition: "Scientific method is the means by which man attempts to attain a rational understanding and effective control of his environment." If you decline to accept this particular phrasing, I feel confident that we can find a meeting of minds on some still higher level of abstraction. But when we do, will we have anything that is useful to ourselves or to our students? It is like dubbing religion as "the expression of man's emotional response to his environment." The definition is essentially sterile and uninformative when it is a matter of reaching a fundamental grasp of ancient and modern creeds. But William James has written an illuminating book with a title that I find very apt— The Varieties of Religious Experience. There is much here that is helpful in producing a concrete understanding of various religions. What we try to do in our course is to give some grasp of The Varieties of Scientific Experience. Our case studies touch on a number of these varieties, illustrating developments in various sciences at various stages in

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their evolution. Such an indoctrination seems to lead to a fuller understanding of the nature of the scientific enterprise than can possibly be secured from any pat definition of "the scientific method." In short, it provides some perspective on both the diversity and the unity of man's various approaches to the problem of securing a rational understanding of his environment. It has been objected that emphasis on the relatively remote history of science may fail to produce any worthwhile awareness of the current nature of science. Dogmatism on this point is probably dangerous; but there seem to be fairly strong indications that the history of science, even the rather ancient history, suggests considerations that are still highly germane today. Though the analogy between science and war is an abomination, it should be noted that military education has usually involved a very extensive consideration of carefully selected cases from military history. Surely military education has the most utilitarian of utilitarian goals; and these goals lie entirely in the future, not in the past. Yet such education has involved a rather intensive study of the battles and campaigns of the past. Presumably such training has not been unfruitful. For example, Patton's handsome tank thrust through France, though conducted with modern tools and different objectives, was rather closely patterned after Sherman's classic cavalry sweep through Georgia. We do not often think of George Patton as a scholar, but it is plain that his reading of the past was not unproductive—even though the application of what he had learned involved the use of materials and techniques peculiar to the present. It is also worth noting that military education does not confine itself to aphorisms like "attack on a point, not on a line"—an analogue, perhaps, of the scientific aphorism "observe without prejudice." The military aphorism does not tell how to find the point or line, how to marshal for the attack, and so on; nor does the scientific aphorism tell what to observe, how to observe, or what to do with the observations. That is, the aphorisms cannot be lifted from their context without depriving them of mucn

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of their meaningfulness: the conclusions cannot be completely divorced from the instances to which they are relevant. In short, it seems doubtful whether much pedagogic value attaches to a discussion of "the scientific method" on a purely philosophical plane, far from the dirty practical realities of everyday scientific work. It is curious that some of the most active proponents of the idea of "the scientific method" are the very people who most deprecate the allegedly "antiquarian" slant of our course. Surely if such a wondrous technique of investigation really existed we could hardly do better than to follow its progressive development and use throughout the period of modern science. This period, we are told, opened when men began to employ "the scientific method," some 300 years ago. But this is the very period from which the majority of our cases are drawn. The death of Galileo occurred later than the founding of Harvard College—so brief is the era during which science has grown to its present maturity. In this light it does not seem improbable that an understanding of the science and scientists of this quite recent past will be useful for, and relevant to an understanding of the science and scientists of the present. By selecting a number of our illustrative cases from the past we are enabled to secure a better perspective on a number of relevant influences—scientific, philosophical, economic and social —that are all too often seen out of proportion or not at all when present-day scientific work is examined. Then, too, the somewhat slower pace of the older advances presents important advantages. The analogues of developments now completed in weeks or months formerly required years or centuries: where today the events are telescoped into kaleidoscopic confusion, the older advances appear as in a slow-motion film, permitting us to follow the small separate conceptual and experimental steps leading up to the final denouement. There is much to be said for the use of modern cases and, to some extent, they are used in our course. However, such a case

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often entails extended discussion of a good deal of background information, which is not of great value in itself, and which is disproportionate to the illustrative value of the case in question. Therefore we have used modern cases rather sparingly. But the extensive use of historical materials, particularly fairly remote historical materials, raises serious problems of student motivation. We believe that we have had some degree of success in coping with these problems; the measures adopted in dealing with them will be pointed up in the following discussion of the pattern of a "case" and of its presentation in our course. What Constitutes a Case History ( 1 ) The technical core of the case—the nature of the data, the difficulties of getting at the "facts," the ambiguities these "facts" may contain, and so forth. Some sense of the totality of the matters at issue is produced by rather detailed treatment of the appropriate limited areas of science; but this factual information is regarded as only a by-product of instruction in the patterns of scientific advance. Through extensive demonstration of the relevant experiments, we are often able to arouse in some of our students the titillating sense of discovery, though by and large the nonconcentrators' response may be lukewarm. (2) The historical core of the case. The gradual development of a conceptual structure, based on experimental observations and on things less tangible, is considered in particular detail. This study is founded on original writings of the scientists actually involved, through which the progressive development of a new scientific concept was first disclosed. The hesitations, the retrogressions, the failures in this development are all clearly manifested—as are the intuitive insights, the inductive brilliancies, and the triumphant apprehension of a major organizing principle of science. We confront the student with the problem in all its bewildering complexity, emphasizing both its difficulty and its importance.

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Sometimes we have developed two competing theories side by side—showing how in many instances the contemporary evaluation of the available evidence did not reveal any clear-cut superiority of the theory that, today, is said to be "obviously right." The inability of pure experimentation to provide a perfectly clean-cut criterion of "truth" is stressed; and it is suggested that there is a fallacy of oversimplification involved in the idea of a "crucial experiment." We try to highlight the purely aesthetic appeal of a well-contrived conceptual scheme, in which each part serves with minimum effort and maximum effect. These aesthetic aspects have a strong appeal to us as working scientists. However, the transmission of this appreciation to students not concentrating in science is usually far from perfect, and it would be folly to consider this as in itself a sufficient source of student motivation. Thus in many instances the best sources of motivation may lie outside the core of the case. ( 3 ) The setting of the case in scientific history. Science grows not in an intellectual vacuum, but in a world already full of ideas, scientific and otherwise. Some sense of a continuing effort and a continuing heritage can be engendered by following the development and assimilation of ideas arising from previous scientific work. It is also profitable to examine the influence of preceding and contemporary philosophic attitudes, especially their effect on the appraisal of what constitutes a "rational" explanation. Nonmajor students are interested in these philosophic overtones, which can generally be shown to have an important relevance to the case. The drama of the situation can also be heightened by some indication of the remote precursors, the various near misses, and all the more or less clearly felt premonitions of the approach of new developments. (4) The human aspects of the situation. We show the experimental misadventures and human frailties of our protagonists. We seek to display science as an intensely human venture, developing each episode with all its emotional flavor. In all this,

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one important goal is to convey to the students some sense of "a visit to the laboratory"—a real laboratory, where real research is in progress. It may be objected that the time expended in these connections might be better spent in teaching "more science" as such. But there is strong motivation for our students in the human appeal of the story, and such motivation is probably not present in "more science." Even more important, this supportive material we introduce contributes in itself to a sounder understanding of science. For example, it can go far toward removing some of that sense of witchcraft which is, as Doctor Dubos has pointed out, so dangerously associated in the public's mind with science. There is a sense of witchcraft associated with any operation conducted by a hidden mechanism: it is our aim to reveal the mechanism. One effective means of doing so is to have the student follow for a significant stretch the tortuous advance of science. It is also important to dispel the notion that the operations and conclusions of science have perfect certainty, that science is a miracle worker to which all things are possible. There is no indication that science is made any less attractive by this kind of "debunking." Indeed, it seems to be rendered even more attractive when it is seen as one of many human enterprises, subject to all the risks and chances that make life at once exciting and terrible, when it is seen to have much in common with any other undertaking to which we bring our hopes and fears, our humility and our ambitions. As a corollary, it is pointed out that the scientist is seldom a remote individual perennially neutral and inhumanly dispassionate; that he is not a man of mystery and beard; and that his profession is more than the simple collection and scrutiny of facts. The day-to-day examination of the blunders, failures, misinterpretations, false analogies, wishful thinking, false leads, and false hopes with which the greatest scientists of past and present have gone stumbling down the road to knowledge seems to engender a real sympathy for the scientist and a better appreciation of his work.

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(5) The setting of the case in general intellectual and social history. Through the lectures and the supplementary readings, background material on the social and economic atmosphere surrounding the scientific undertaking is sketched in. There is a powerful source of motivation here; but, more important, it leads directly to a consideration of such important topics as the rediscovery of Greek learning, the growth of science as an organized social activity, the role of the universities and the learned societies in the advance of science, and so on. More directly, some attention is devoted to the mutual relations of pure and applied science, including the Marxian view of these questions as well as some of the critiques thereof, and, in general, to placing science within the larger framework of human activity, relating it to other fields that are of direct interest to our students. Here we have the development of some sense of over-all integration on the specific rather than on the general level. This more modest effort appears to be safer and, if you wish, more "scientific" than any attempt to produce integration from the top down. There is an opportunity to build up a broader picture from the totality of the kinds of integration observed in the special instances; and, in the best scientific tradition, there is an endogenous progression from the specific toward the general. This is to be contrasted with integration decreed as policy, which almost inevitably deals largely in terms of generalities that are no more glittering than they are artificial and expedient. By study of several concrete cases a fairly well-rounded view of the interaction of diverse activities can generally be secured—often an appraisal of this interaction can be found in the words of one of the actors in our story—and there is no constraint produced by demands for a special kind or kinds of general integration. Through the integration of science with its social environment, it is possible to overcome the repellent notion that science is a thing apart from the culture of its time. Considerable stress can be laid on this point. Thus, for example, it is well known that the criterion of "simplicity" has on many occasions served in lieu of a criterion of "truth." But valuable though this test has been,

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it is easy to see how profoundly the sense of "simplicity" has been altered from time to time, changing not only with scientific fashions but also as a response to various social and philosophical presures. That is, there have been a variety of extrascientific factors that have helped to shape the "scientific" response to both facts and theories. In general the "reasonableness" and importance of these facts and theories will be assessed by standards of judgment that are made to conform with elements outside, as well as inside, of science. The current situation in Russian genetics displays the extrascientific pressures in an aggravated form, similar to the ecclesiastically exerted pressures that beset the natural philosophers of the early seventeenth century. But these extrascientific pressures and fashions have always existed—probably they will always exist—and to present science as something ever wholly immune to them is to misrepresent history. (6) The modern relevance of the facts and ideas involved. A most potent influence in stimulating the students' interest and, at the same time, broadening their view, arises from an examination of the continuing significance of the case. This possibility has not yet been extensively developed in our course; but it seems plain that there are here intrinsically interesting and valuable topics that can be touched upon without an undue expenditure of lecture time. President Conant has probably achieved the most successful exploitation of such modern material, in connection with his discussion of Pasteur's work on spontaneous generation. He wound up his presentation with a discussion of some modern arguments about the nature of the quasi-self-forming viruses. He pointed out that the problem of orthogenesis, though in a rather different and less acute form, was still with us. He successfully conveyed the idea that a continuation of the problem to which Pasteur had addressed himself was still an active issue. The student response was intense. Though this particular approach has real potentialities, it is not without its dangers—particularly if it is too much directed toward the technological changes through which science has

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affected civilization. As Doctor Dubos and Doctor Goudsmit have pointed out, there is already too great a tendency to confuse science with the products of science. A major emphasis on the technological fruits of science, unless it is made with the greatest circumspection, may too much encourage this association. If the importance of the technological impact of science is called to the students' attention, there is good reason to suppose that they can, and probably will want to, continue independently their study of this subject. Surely the preparation of a firm foundation for the students' continued self-education is one of the highest goals of formal education. And, indeed, unless some such foundation is laid down, attempts to acquaint the students with the social implications of science must ultimately fail since, as Professor Le Corbeiller has noted, the social implications of technology are shifting and widening with breathtaking rapidity. The Preparation of Case Materials So much for the general structure of a "case." Still to be considered is the optimum form of presentation of case materials. It is plain that a basic requirement is the conveyance of the genuine flavor of the episode studied, the personalities of the protagonists, and so forth. It is equally plain that the only safe way to this goal entails a fairly detailed study, by the students, of original documentary materials. Any attempts to provide extensive abstracts or paraphrases of the original work are dangerous: it is almost inevitable that some of the history will be read backward, clearing up questions and doubts that now seem trivial but were of prime importance to the workers whose efforts are to be examined. But granted that the students must come to grips with the raw materials of history, it seems also essential that this study be assisted by a very careful selection, editing, and annotation of these materials. It has been objected that commentaries on, and deletions from,

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the raw documents are inadmissible because they tend to produce dangerous distortions of the originals in the sense noted above. There is, undeniably, a considerable hazard involved. However, when the editing is carried out circumspectly, there is no reason why a document cannot be enormously improved in readability without significantly impairing its true sense and savor. Moreover, it must be recognized that simple abstention from editing does not in itself constitute a solution to the problem. Little value can attach to the presentation of rigorously correct historic materials that are, for all practical purposes, well beyond the range of student comprehension. It does not appear that this seemingly obvious difficulty has always been sufficiently appreciated. Thus, for example, we have heard much of an educational program based almost exclusively on readings of the major classics—scientific and otherwise. I think that we are the victims of self-deception if we expect the student to really appreciate the content and significance of, say, Newton's Principia. Nor is this an isolated case. The masterworks of science on the reading list of this program include a number of other classics little less in significance, though scarcely greater in general intelligibility. The goal of reading these masterpieces is, no doubt, laudable; but, particularly when they make rather difficult reading even for the trained scientist, it is much to be doubted whether these "readings" produce any sense of understanding or appreciation in the students' minds. This pedagogic approach appears to have much in common with the sink-or-swim technique of teaching swimming. It works beautifully with the few gifted individuals who at once find themselves at home in the water; but it fails miserably in the great majority of instances. Far from teaching students how to swim, this treatment is apt to excite a fear of and distaste for the water; and it further encourages the notion that there is something mysterious and faintly sinister about those who are able to swim. But these are the very sentiments that sound pedagogy will spare no pains to avoid. And mutatis mutandis

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they are also the very sentiments likely to result from an assignment to read the scientific classics in all their brilliant and terrible majesty. Having appreciated the dangers of this approach, another program in the historical teaching of science has adopted more modest goals, confining itself to the examination of rather carefully selected historical documents. At least one of the criteria of selection raises the question whether the readings are accessible to the comprehension of the average undergraduate—surely a very realistic approach. But there is still no supplementary editing or annotation. This abstention is honorably motivated, growing from a very keen appreciation of the distortions that can arise from incautious tampering with a historical document. But though in this situation the student is at least assured that the water is not above his head, a rapid immersion to shoulder depth may produce much the same distressing reactions noted above, and may be equally ineffective in producing an ability to swim. In many cases the unedited historical documents fairly bristle with obsolete terms, conceits that are no longer intelligible, allusions to other work that is not and cannot be completely represented in the readings, and so forth. By forswearing editing and annotation the pristine purity of the historical sources is maintained intact, but little or nothing is done to relieve the unintelligibility of that history. In preparing our readings every attempt has been made to improve their comprehensibility to the extent that this can be done without impairing their correct historic sense. Discursive asides, uninstructive irrelevancies, pointless repetitions, and so on, have been deleted. Many of the early scientific publications suffer acutely from poor organization and presentation, and there is ample room for judicious cutting. This can be done without significantly altering the flavor of the document, save that the stark outlines of the basic experimental and conceptual forms involved are more strongly highlighted. If the metaphor may be shifted, this operation may be said to correspond to the

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clearing away of rubble from around a newly discovered Greek temple. The casual onlooker cannot be expected to perceive and appreciate the classic lines of the temple when it is half-buried in debris. The debris must be removed before the noble profile can be seen. The first objective in the preparation of our historical documents is of a similar kind: an attempt to clear away the extraneous and secondary material that would otherwise come between the student and the understanding of the significance of the documents. Obviously one's editorial enthusiasm must not be overweening. In "restoring" the temple the blocks must not be displaced to make the design conform to modern ideas of what a Greek architect should have wanted. The original outlines must be preserved. Nor can parts of the structure that are obviously integral parts of the original design be suppressed, even when it is clear that these parts represent an unartistic superfluity. Or, leaving all metaphor, the edited documents must be true to the spirit of the original. We must make no attempt to disguise our hero's occasional confusion, for example, by deleting all the betraying passages and filling them in with the innocuous three dots. To be sure, there is no need for indefinitely multiplying such instances; but at least a few should be allowed to pass in all their gruesome splendor, together with some indication that other failures of the same sort occur elsewhere. These self-revelatory passages are of the highest importance in showing the confusion that ordinarily attends even the most masterly advance; they often provide good indications of why the advance was not made much earlier; and they also foreshadow some of the astonishing delays in the acceptance of concepts that today seem perfectly self-evident. Similar delays, arising from initial confusion, occur every day and month as modern science advances haltingly into the trackless wilderness. Indeed, to show science only in its leaps forward, omitting its wanderings and backtrackings, is to present an oversimplified account and, therefore, a false one. The delays are as much a part of science as the sudden forward spurts.

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Besides judicious cutting that does not alter the sense of the documents, these materials are also thoroughly annotated to bring out, in their proper context, those aspects of the scientific enterprise to which attention is to be directed. The quality of these annotations largely determines the instructional value of the documents. As President Conant has already provided, in On Understanding Science, a fairly detailed account of the character of these annotations, there is little that need be added here. A Test of the Case Method It has been objected that this painstaking preparation of documents deprives them of much of their intellectual challenge, and makes of them a highly artificial form of spoon-feeding. But some such spoon-feeding appears to be essential. The average freshman cannot be expected to plunge immediately into the interpretative examination of science without the life belt provided by sympathetic annotation of the raw documents. However, if the instruction given him is successful, he should have, by the end of the course, some ability to perceive for himself the important points in, and the significance of, the raw documentary evidence of a scientific advance. Some time ago, near the end of the year, we attempted to gauge the measure of our success by presenting our students with just such a problem. The students received a sheaf of ««annotated reproductions of some of the original publications of Ramsay and Rayleigh on the discovery of the rare gases. They were asked to submit, at the end of several weeks, a short essay on the significance of this work, particularly noting those points that illustrated important aspects of the scientific enterprise. It would be futile to deny that among these essays there were a few complete "busts," but by and large the results were extremely encouraging. The two most heartening aspects of this test were as follows: (1) The students seemed to be quite interested in the problem, they felt adequately prepared to cope with it on the basis of what they had already learned, and they were pleased with

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their assignment. This suggests that our students had developed some foundation for an appreciation of science, as well as the desire to continue their self-education in science—for example, in the relatively exciting realm of the interaction of science and technology with society. (2) The students generally displayed a real competence to sift out some of the more significant items in this particular bit of work, despite the fact that some of these relevancies did not stand out in high relief and had not been previously discussed in the course. Apparently they were able to grasp these points by the use of certain methods of critical reading that they had learned to apply to such material, together with their knowledge of some of the continuing patterns in the scientific enterprise. Their success in this undertaking has been so striking that we feel real confidence in our techniques. Conclusion The goal of our course has already been stated: the development of a healthy and informed attitude toward, an appreciation and understanding of, science. Doctor Dubos has suggested that the public's distrust of science is due, at least in part, to its inevitable failure to live up to their inordinately optimistic appraisal of its capabilities. In discussing the earlier and the more recent activities of science it is carefully pointed out to our students that the urgency of the desire for the solution of a particular scientific problem constitutes no guarantee that it will be or even can be solved. Too much stress on the "miracles" of chemotherapy and technology encourages the propagation of just such false hopes and just such frustrations. That great strides will be made in science cannot be doubted, but that they will lead immediately to a desired end—the cure of cancer, an unlimited supply of cortisone, food without limit and joy without reserve—can legitimately be questioned. This unbounded optimism can be tempered by the suggestion that unlimited scientific progress in a specified

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direction cannot be bought or otherwise induced. Favorable conditions for an advance can be created, and the advance may be accelerated; but the advance itself cannot be created, nor is there ever perfect assurance that laboratory triumphs will prove successful in applications. Part of the misplaced confidence in the superior powers of science arises from two delusions to which brief reference has already been made. The cult of the fact. That some facts are necessary to scientific advance is undeniable, but that they are also sufficient to produce the advance is very doubtful. The cult of the fact encourages the belief that since facts can be bought, by money and labor, then, by the same token, scientific advance can be bought. Emphasis on the point that more goes into the making of science than facts as such, and that the factual information is in many instances hopelessly equivocal, helps to place this matter in a more realistic perspective. The cult of the method. The persistent application of "the scientific method" is widely supposed to be the source of the "unlimited" power of science. However, if there is such a method, and if the scientists whose work we study have used it, it is all too plain that the method is not omnipotent; that it is never applied twice in the same way, since each new application presents new problems; that the development of its use in one field is in no sense a guarantee of its successful application in another field; and, in short, that the supposed existence of "the method" is but a delusory basis for extravagant optimism about the potentialities of modern science. It has been suggested above that these and cognate misconceptions may be encouraged rather than dissipated by the traditional specialists' courses in science. An alternative approach has been outlined in some detail. Its essence resides in the presentation to the students of a number of representative episodes, or "cases," in the development of the various sciences, the presentations aiming above all at portrayals that are at once humanly

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vivid and historically valid, enlightening to the understanding and relevant to the issues presented by the science of today. The evidence now available gives us some reason to feel that this approach does indeed lead to a significant kind and amount of appreciation and comprehension of the scientific enterprise as it was and as it is—or, in short, that it does indeed provide an understanding of science.

ACQUIRING A K N O W L E D G E OF THE HISTORY OF

SCIENCE

Frederick G. Kflgour

he purpose of this paper is to recommend a series of readings that will enable an instructor in science to achieve a knowledge and understanding of the history of science, it being assumed that such an instructor intends to teach science historically. The techniques employed in teaching science historically are not yet well developed, and what degree of knowledge and understanding of the history of science an instructor needs will depend on his contemplated teaching procedures. Few will have the inclination, desire, or need to follow all of the recommendations below. However, if an instructor intends to go so far as to write up his own case histories, most of the recommendations should be followed. It is undoubtedly true that a large majority of nonscientific students will be able to acquire an understanding of science more readily from the historical approach than from instruction in the principles and facts of science. However, it is also true that until more casebooks and historical textbooks on the "tactics and strategy of science" are available, the instructor will necessarily have to spend much time in preparing teaching materials.

T

It is assumed, of course, that the instructor is familiar with a fairly broad segment of science. This paper points the way for acquiring a knowledge and understanding of the history of science, short of taking courses in the subject. Having acquired such a knowledge and understanding, the instructor will have to integrate his historical and scientific knowledge if he is to impart an understanding of science by using the historical approach.

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Teaching the history of science and teaching the sciences historically are two entirely different things. The reader must clearly realize that having acquired a basic knowledge of the history of science he is not ipso facto prepared to teach the sciences historically. The danger here is that the course might turn out to be a history course instead of a science course. Acquiring a knowledge and understanding of any historical discipline is not easy. However, it is particularly difficult to acquire a knowledge and understanding of the history of science because of the lack of good textbooks and handbooks. It must be emphasized that knowledge without understanding is useless. Understanding, with its wise skepticism and critical judgment, is certainly more difficult to achieve than knowledge, and a conscious effort is required to develop it. Fortunately, in the history of science it is comparatively easy to develop skepticismone of the first steps toward critical judgment. One has but to read two histories of science to realize that many statements in one of them—and perhaps in both of them—are wrong. But to convert such skepticism into critical judgment will require effort. What is the history of science? It is the interpretation of the progress of the concepts and conceptual schemes concerning what underlies the appearances of the natural world. General history interprets the achievements of mankind in its efforts to further civilization. But the achievements in such fields as politics or art are not progressive in the sense that science progresses. Renaissance painting was not essential for the development of modern painting; many would say, in fact, that most Renaissance painting is more beautiful than most modern painting. In any event, Renaissance painting is as effective today as it was four hundred years ago in producing a feeling of beauty. But the science of the Renaissance is not as valid today as it was in 1550. Since 1550 the concepts of science have continually been replaced by new concepts that more adequately explain observed natural phenomena. But the new concepts are not produced de novo; they are developed from previous concepts and

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from new observations. It is in this sense of the acquisition of new knowledge and the development of new concepts that the history of science portrays the one truly progressive factor in the achievements of mankind. Unfortunately, most textbooks in the history of science are not really histories. The favorite approach to the history of science is the chronological recording of discoveries and discoverers with no attempt to interpret the scientific advance in relation to the culture of the day. In addition, many histories of science contain so many inaccuracies that even the dry, chronological, biobibliographical record is invalidated. It is often said that histories of science are written either by historians who do not understand science or by scientists who do not understand history. There have been more of the latter than of the former. But one must begin somewhere and there are a few good introductions to the history of science. For descriptions of what the history of science is, one should read both of the following: George Sarton, The History of Science and the New Humanism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1937), 191 pp; George Sarton, The Study of the History of Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936), 75 pp. Doctor Sarton's books are excellent and they lucidly set forth a mature scholar's concept of the history of science. As for textbooks, there are only three that do not have serious limitations. This startling lack of good books is due to the fact that the history of science as a professional discipline is hardly fifty years old. Perhaps it is surprising that three good histories of science were produced in the first fifty years. They are: William P. D. Wightman, The Growth of Scientific Ideas (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951), 495 pp; Charles Singer, A Short History of Science to the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941), 399 pp;

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William Cecil Dampier, A History of Science and its Relations with Philosophy and Religion (4th ed.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1949), 527 pp. To acquire a basic knowledge of the history of science one might begin by reading Wightman's book and one of the other two, preferably Singer's. One will then know the principal lines of scientific development and will have some appreciation of the progress of science and of the contribution of the experimental attitude of mind to Western civilization. If only a general familiarity with the history of science is required, one need not go further. However, it is difficult to see how science can be taught historically without a deeper knowledge and understanding of its history. Before proceeding to further recommendations, it is necessary to discuss in some detail the two principal shortcomings of the literature of the history of science, namely, its lack of historical perspective and its incredible inaccuracies. Of the two, the lack of historical perspective is the more subtle pitfall. One of the great lessons of the history of science that is often not taught is that science is but one of the achievements of civilization and that there is a constant interaction between scientific activity and other areas of human endeavor. The effect of science on the last three hundred years of Western civilization has been tremendous. But it is equally true that politics, art, philosophy, and religion have had their effect on science and have made their contributions to science. During the past decade we have had several examples of the interrelation between politics and science. Lysenkoism is one of the less attractive aspects of this relation. In teaching science historically, some understanding of the relation between science and society should be imparted to the students. Often a real effort will have to be made to discover what that relation is. Inaccuracies are repeatedly copied and recopied in histories

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of science. These inaccuracies do not for the most part invalidate our understanding of the principal lines of the development of science, but they do render the central story less clear. Since the tendency in teaching science historically is to discuss at length the development of a single concept, it is obvious that our knowledge of that development should be as accurate as possible. As an example, one often sees references to William Harvey's "exact, quantitative experiments," which enabled him to discover the circulation of the blood, as being the first quantitative work done in physiology. Harvey's quantitative measurements were certainly not the first in physiology; Santorio's measurement of the loss of body weight under various circumstances preceded Harvey's work by several decades. As for the exactness of Harvey's work, one might think from a first reading of Singer's description of it that Harvey would be a splendid yet simple example of modern quantitative procedure in biology. W e would emphasize that the essential part of . . . [Harvey's] demonstration is the result not of mere observation but of the application of Galileo's principle of measurement. Having shown that the blood can only leave the ventricle of the heart in one direction, he turns to measure the capacity of the heart. He finds it to be two ounces. The heart beats 72 times a minute so that in the hour it throws into the system 2 X 72 X 60 ounces = 8,640 ounces = 5 4 0 pounds, that is to say about three times the body weightl Where can all this blood come from? Where can it all go to? The answer to that is that the blood is a stage army which goes off only to come on again. It is the same blood that is always returning. 1

However, Harvey's original words, as translated by Chauncey Leake, read as follows: Let us consider, arbitrarily or by experiment, that the left ventricle of the heart when filled in diastole, contains two or three ounces, or only an ounce and a half. In a cadaver I have found it holding more than three ounces. Likewise let us consider how much less the ventricle 1 Charles Singer, A Short History of Science to the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 237.

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contains when the heart contracts or how much blood it forces into the aorta with each contraction, for, during systole, everyone will admit something is always forced out, as shown in Chapter III, and apparent from the structure of the valves. As a reasonable conjecture suppose a fourth, fifth, sixth, or even an eighth part is passed into the arteries. Then we may suppose in man that a single heart beat would force out either a half ounce, three drams, or even one dram of blood, which because of the valvular block could not flow back that way into the heart. The heart makes more than a thousand beats in a half hour, in some two, three, or even four thousand. Multiplying by the drams, there will be in half an hour either 3,000 drams, 2,000 drams, five hundred ounces, or some other such proportionate amount of blood forced into the arteries by the heart, but always a greater quantity than is present in the whole body . . . So it may be inferred that if the heart in a single beat in man, sheep, or ox, pumps one dram, and there are 1,000 beats in half an hour, the total amount pumped in that time would be ten pounds five ounces.2 Singer's inaccurate statements do not obscure the fact that Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, but they are misleading as to Harvey's measurements, calculations, and reasoning. In the first place, Harvey's measurement of the contents of the left ventricle of a dead heart, which was undoubtedly a dilated heart, was "more than three ounces." The lowest weight which he assumed and evidently used in his calculations was 1.5 ounces. Singer has him measuring 2 ounces, and in this instance Singer is correct because Leake erred in translating "ultra as "more than three ounces." Although we now believe that practically the entire contents of the left ventricle are ejected with each contraction, Harvey assumed that only part of the contents was ejected. His lowest "reasonable conjecture" was that one eighth of the contents was ejected. Also Harvey does not report any specific measurement of the pulse beat but used 1,000 per half hour ( 33 per minute ) which is an improbably low figure in man. 2 William Harvey, De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus, translated with annotations by Chauncey D. Leake (Springfield, 111., Charles C Thomas, 1931), pp. 73-76.

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Singer has him using 72 per minute. Harvey's 1 dram as the stroke volume of the left ventricle (not 2 ounces as used by Singer) is only about one-seventeenth of the probable stroke volume. In addition, Harvey used apothecaries' weight and Singer has used avoirdupois weight. Using a measure that is only one-seventeenth the actual measure to make an important discovery requires some explanation. The point to be brought out is that advances can be made in science even though very inaccurate quantitative measurements of part of a total quantity are used, provided the total quantity is very large. In terms of the metric system, Harvey's result had to exceed 3.5 kg; his lowest calculation was 3.9 kg. A more nearly accurate calculation is 120 kg. The main force of Harvey's argument is that the blood which was put out by the heart could not accumulate, nor could it be supplied by ingested food. The output of the heart is so great over the period of 30 minutes that he could safely use a very low estimate of the weight of each ejection. In fact, he probably worked the problem backward, knowing the weight of the blood in a body, making estimates, and only roughly determining that the estimates were lower than the probable actual value. Harvey's type of reasoning is still used effectively in biology, and the phrase "cannot be less than" often qualifies estimated measurements in current literature. The best way to avoid being misled by inaccuracies is to consult the original document. The great difficulty here is that many of the original documents are not readily available. Consulting several secondary sources is often helpful in turning up inaccuracies, but it is not an infallible procedure. To return to recommendations for acquiring a deeper understanding of the history of science, it is suggested that the history of a single science for a period of fifty to a hundred years be studied intensively. The period to be covered should probably be chosen between 1500 and 1900. It would be practically impossible, as well as undesirable, to use exclusively any period between A.D. 200 and 1500 for giving a student an understanding

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of modem science, to say nothing of the general unavailability of the original documents. Both the science and the period selected for study should be chosen on the basis of one's individual interests. One should make an early check to determine in advance that adequate original documents will be available and that the development of the new concepts will actually be a useful basis for instruction. Perhaps the greatest advantage to be derived from the intensive study of one science over a fairly brief period will be the development of a critical judgment. But how should one proceed to acquire the more thorough knowledge of the history of one science for one period? The first requirement is such a work as the Wightman and Singer or Dampier titles listed above. It is absolutely necessary constantly to relate one's studies to the general developments in science in terms of what preceded one's period, what was going on at that time, and what followed. It is equally desirable to try to develop an understanding of the relation between science and society. There is no one book that portrays this relation in general, although there are a few monographs and periodical articles that cover the subject with varying degrees of adequacy for the seventeenth century. The best procedure is to acquire several textbooks in general and special history for both reading and reference. The following are representative examples: Wallace K. Ferguson and Geoffrey Bruun, A Survey of European Civilization, Ancient Times to the Present (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1939), 1117 pp; Benjamin A. G. Fuller, A History of Philosophy (Rev. ed.; New York: Holt, 1945), 560 pp; Eugene Garrett Bewkes, Experience, Reason, and Faith: A Survey in Philosophy and Religion (New York: Harper, 1940), 649 pp; Helen Gardner, Art Through the Ages (3d ed.; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1948), 851 pp.

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Next, a history of science limited to a given period and covering the period of one's interest should be acquired and studied thoroughly. There is no history of science limited to the nineteenth century, but the following titles are helpful for the earlier centuries. Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science, 1300-1800 (London: G. Bell, 1949), 217 pp; Abraham Wolf, A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 16th and 17th Centuries (New York: Macmillan, 1935), 692 pp; Abraham Wolf, A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Macmillan, 1939), 814 pp. The Butterfield book is particularly good; it is a truly historical analysis of the beginnings of modern science. Finally, one or more histories of the specialized science selected should be obtained and read from cover to cover. Unfortunately, nearly all histories of specialized sciences are factual, chronological analyses rather than historical syntheses. The reader will be obliged to integrate the history of a special science with the general history of science and with general history. There are many histories of the special sciences and the following list contains but a few examples of them. Each title is one of the better books in its field, useful for reference. David Eugene Smith, History of Mathematics (Boston: Ginn, 1923-25), 2 vols.; Florian Cajori, A History of Physics (New York: Macmillan, 1929), 424 pp; James Riddick Partington, A Short History of Chemistry (2d ed.; London: Macmillan, 1948), 386 pp; Erik Nordenskiöld, The History of Biology (New York: Knopf, 1929), 629 pp; Arturo Castiglioni, A History of Medicine (2d ed., New York: Knopf, 1947), 1192 pp.

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It is presumed that not many will wish to investigate the history of science as thoroughly as the above recommendations would lead one to do. Nevertheless, if these recommendations are followed, an understanding of the history of science adequate for teaching the sciences historically will be attained. For those who wish to go further, either to work up case histories in detail or to satisfy their own curiosity, the original documents must be consulted. But as already noted, many of the older original documents are not generally available; in fact, many of them are extremely rare books. During the nineteenth century, publication in periodicals became more common. Photostats or microfilms of such periodical articles can usually be obtained from a large library. An original document should always be read with a critical and analytical eye. The first step after having read it is to draw up an outline of the contents such as the author may have prepared before he wrote the book or paper. This outline should not exceed one page in length and is almost always revealing as to the relative emphasis the author placed on the various topics included in his work. When the outline reveals uneven emphasis, one is always intrigued into reëxamining certain portions of the original work to attempt to discover what the author did and did not do. For instance, only two of the seventeen chapters of Harvey's De Motu Cordis are devoted to a discussion of the pulmonary circulation. Why is the discussion so relatively brief? A rereading of the two chapters reveals that Harvey did not add any essential, new evidence to demonstrate the passage of the blood from the right side of the heart through the lungs and back to the left side. To make this observation one must of course have already acquired a knowledge of the physiology of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. What evidence might Harvey have supplied that he did not supply? It is always much more difficult to detect the gaps. Nevertheless, one obvious gap is Harvey's

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failure to use the same quantitative argument that he used to support the systemic circulation. It is obvious that over a period of comparatively few minutes the right side of the heart must eject an amount of blood equal to that ejected by the left side once the systemic circulation has been demonstrated. The same quantitative arguments could then be applied to the pulmonary circulation. Returning to the outline of Harvey's book, one finds that the pulmonary circulation is discussed before the systemic circulation. This sequence is probably the reason why Harvey did not use quantitative arguments to support the pulmonary circulation. In addition to analyzing carefully the original work, it is also important to repeat any calculations. In the quotation above from Harvey's book, his lowest assumed capacity of the left ventricle is 1.5 ounces and his lowest conjecture of the fraction of blood ejected from the ventricle with each contraction is oneeighth. His lowest supposition for the amount of blood passed out with each beat is 1 dram. Yet in apothecaries' weight, Ja X 1.5 ounces = 1.5 drams. It is of considerable interest to find that Harvey rounded off 1.5 drams to 1 dram. One should also search the original document for lack of continuity or for unevenness of style. Such evidence may very well lead to a discovery of the steps that led the author to a new concept. On the other hand, discontinuity may reveal something interesting that does not have any particular bearing on the discovery of a new concept. We can call on Harvey to furnish us another example. His translator, Doctor Leake, draws attention to the lack of continuity and unevenness of style in Harvey's book as evidence that sections of it were written at different times, and Leake is undoubtedly correct. Harvey apparently even inserted one chapter between two finished chapters. He concludes Chapter IX with a statement that he is going to discuss the anastomosis of veins and arteries; Leake adds a comment in a footnote: "But he doesn't. This point is quite forgotten.

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Further evidence of assembling the treatise from notes written at different times."3 Actually the point is not forgotten, for anastomosis is discussed in Chapter XI. An examination of Chapter X, which is hardly more than two pages long, leads to the conclusion that it must have been inserted, after the main work had been written, to forestall two criticisms that had been made to Harvey. The inserted Chapter X is an additional effort on Harvey's part to gain acceptance of his discovery. Having carefully analyzed the document, one should then try to answer such questions about it as: What was the question that the author was answering? Could the discovery have been made earlier? Was there any particular development in general history that conditioned the discovery? How was the discovery made? To what extent is the new concept still satisfactory? Of what value was the new concept to further scientific advance and to applied science? And most important of all, What principles of science could students be expected to learn from a study of the discovery? For the few who will follow all of these recommendations, the real fun of the history of science will be just beginning. So little work has been done in the subject that it is almost a virgin field. Anyone whose curiosity has been thoroughly aroused by the history of science and who proceeds to do some research will be able to make fundamental contributions. Today the history of science is like science itself: there is still much that is unknown or inadequately known. 3

Ibid., p. 80.

The Sciences in a Technical Civilization

APPLICATIONS OF SCIENCE AND THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE Philippe Le Corbeiller

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t the present time four different courses in the Physical Sciences are offered at Harvard to nonscience freshmen and sophomores. In the introductory lecture of the course that it is my privilege to give, I suggest that one reason a nonscientist ought to know something about science is the important role science and technology have played in shaping American society as we know it today. The purpose of the present paper is to present and develop this point of view. Logically, I should begin by showing proof that science and technology have had a great deal to do with the social changes that have occurred during the last hundred years. However, I rather hesitate to prove that point because of its obviousness. I am very sure that if anyone were to sit down with pencil and paper and think, "What can one say about the role of technology in social change?" he would put down almost exactly the things I am going to mention, adding perhaps some item that I have not thought of. Even so, there is some point in going over this familiar field because we shall in this way obtain a better approach to our actual problem: What justification is there for requiring the nonscientist to take a science course? Let us then, as the title of this paper requires, list the most important technical developments that have taken place since 1800 or 1850, which sciences they imply or rely upon, and what impact they have had upon society. I shall not try to list them in any particular order, and so am beginning with the field that comes to my mind first: transportation.

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Let us put down a few dates, rounding them off for convenience. Steamships did not exist before 1800, passenger trains before 1850, automobiles before 1900, airplanes before 1910. So all of our common means of transportation were completely unknown 150 years ago. The Father of our country transported himself by exactly the same means as Julius Caesar, by foot and on horseback. When the Republic was founded, it was a great question whether it was reasonable to ask the representatives of the thirteen States to make every year such a dangerous and fatiguing journey as would be necessary to come to the Federal capital. All of the changes that have taken place in transportation have occurred practically in the last 100 years, and it is surprising that we are not more conscious of the fact that the means of transportation that had served for 4000 years have practically disappeared—we do not see anyone any more riding horseback to work or driving a span to his country house. These transportation techniques imply on the scientific side dynamics, heat, aerodynamics—and metallurgy first of all, because until the nineteenth century most machines were made of wood and the presence of iron and steel everywhere around us is one of these very recent transformations that we all take for granted. The impact of transportation on life? It has created modern fluidity: people can go where they like, they can move to another town if they do not find conditions congenial in the town where they are. It is transportation that has made America the nation it is: there would not be the population that is here now if sea transportation had remained what it was at the time of the "Mayflower" or in the eighteenth century; the great bulk of American immigrants have come on board steamers, herded like cattle and looking forward to the great dawn of freedom ahead. And afterwards they have moved west behind the railroads. All this is trite, of course—but who is saying those things? The grammar schools and the high schools, to be sure, but when we are teaching in college, we are ashamed to say such things— they are too elementary, too well known. Well, I think they are

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so important that they should be repeated even to college freshmen. So much then for transportation. Now consider mechanical power. Until the eighteenth century, the sources of mechanical power were animal power, some wind and river power, but mostly human power. Since 1750 we have had power derived from coal, since 1900 from oil and, to a small extent in this country, from the great river dams. The total mechanical power used in this country is now several hundred times what it was in 1800. That, of course, means the whole industrial revolution; it means the possibility of having tremendous industrial plants concentrated at one point, handling enormous quantities of material with unlimited power; it means nationwide distribution of the manufactured products. The concentration of industry could not have taken place without the telephone; that is absolutely essential to the existence of urban civilization as we know it. So now we have industrial civilization built upon these things: enormous amounts of cheap mechanical power, easy transportation, easy communication. Perhaps just as important, mechanical power has mechanized the farm. This is especially worth noting because during the first part of the industrial revolution writers used to emphasize the contrast and the antagonism of the industrial worker and of the farmer. The farm had not yet been touched by the industrial revolution and the farmer still operated pretty much as his forefathers did—and by forefathers I mean his forefathers of some 5000 years ago. You may remember, Jefferson improved the plow—can we realize that? Can we imagine that at a time so near us the efforts of that great statesman, who was also something of an engineer, were at a certain moment employed in perfecting that very plow that had been the tool of the great agricultural revolution of about 3000 B.C.? It had not changed much during all the intervening time! Now, when we look at an American farm we see twenty, perhaps fifty different motors of every possible kind and size, used for driving all kinds of farm equipment. And then the tractor—

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this extraordinary invention of the end of the first World War, which put the automobile on the caterpillar and made it capable of moving on bad terrain. That advance of the military art has completely transformed farming. All this I suggest is very remarkable, for it means that the American farmer is very far these days from what he used to be a few generations ago— what he perhaps still is in a few isolated districts; he is now very well informed of the possibilities of technical equipment on the farm; he owns these motors and knows how to run them; he is a very different man. That is not saying he has the psychology of the industrial worker by any means, but his is surely far removed from the psychology of his grandfather the European peasant. While we are on the subject of mechanical power, we should not forget that mechanical power has changed the status of woman in our society. It has brought it about that the motor which one worker in a plant has to control is operated by pushing a button or twisting a dial, and this can be done by a girl without expenditure of strength; she may well be more useful in that capacity than a big burly man with brawn and perhaps less brains. That means economic independence, the possibility of getting away from the family cell if she wants to and cares to. We have already said that easy transportation brought about social fluidity; this means for a woman the possibility of rebuilding in another town a life that for one reason or another has not been successful; it creates in her a completely different psychology—one of self-reliance and independence. We could go on and on about the consequences of that! Mass production is surely one of the most obvious of the new traits of our society. Where does it come from? It comes partly from the easy availability of mechanical power, as we have said already. One other essential element has been modern chemistry, the chemistry of the new metals, the new alloys, the new plastics, and the new lubricants. The center of all mechanical production is the machine tool; progress in metallurgy made possible greater precision of the machine tools, hence less waste, greater inter-

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changeability of the products, less work devoted to finishing and outward appearance. Improved plastics have brought the same results in the field of nonmetals. Another science was needed to make mass production possible. That was electricity, not only in its obvious role in the design of electric motors, but in the more hidden province of instrumentation, steering, and control. It so happens that electricity is the chapter of physics where measurement can be made most easily and accurately; so most physical quantities are now translated into the language of electricity, and we measure lengths, weights, velocities, temperatures, intensities of light, chemical concentrations—practically everything—by reading innumerable dials that are all in reality ammeters, although labeled with the name of some other unit. Then the control of the machines, the turning of all the levers, valves, knobs, which used to be done by hand, is more and more done automatically by electric motors, minute, medium-sized, and large; the functioning of such self-regulating systems has been studied very effectively. The social effects of mass production are felt in many directions. The greatest single one is probably the increased American standard of living, which essentially results from more and better products being produced per man-hour. Technological unemployment is its unfortunate counterpart, relieved at places by new inventions leading to new industries, but mainly absorbed by the steady decrease, during the last hundred years, of the number of working hours. The new technique of electrical controls has created a new type of plant, such as the electric-power station, the automatic telephone exchange, the synthetic-rubber plant, which turns out a huge output with no other personnel than a few maintenance men. Professor N. Wiener of M.I.T. has recently drawn the public's attention to this new trend; it will be interesting to see whether this advance warning will affect its development, in contrast with that, let us say, of large cities or of the automobile industry, which grew to giantism without anybody's foreseeing their social effects.

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Technology, we have just said, creates leisure; now leisure hours are filled in by technology, and this action and reaction is one of the points that show most clearly how much technology permeates our age. Our three principal leisure tools are the automobile, the movies, and the radio. If some seer had described them to a Victorian banker, he would immediately have seen how they could be used for business, but he would hardly have imagined that they would occupy the leisure hours of considerable segments of our population. Another unforeseeable point, characteristic of an industrial product, is that radio and the movies constitute standardized leisure: they are processed at a central point and distributed to millions of customers. The influence of American movies the world over, in modernizing conservative or backward areas, should be mentioned at this point. Until now we have talked about the impact upon society of the physical sciences—physics, chemistry, also geology. Let us not forget the biological sciences, however unqualified I may be to speak of them. Biology has of course transformed agriculture, by creating new strains, by the control of insects, by developing favorable associations of soil, plants and animals, by the new methods of preservation of perishable products. There are few fields where pure, abstract science is more rapidly and effectively applied than that of biology. The social consequences of all this are very interesting. The farmer needs the help of a dozen experts to advise him how to treat the soil of his particular farm, how to combat erosion, how to control insects, what crops are best suited to his soil, and so forth. He gets this expert advice either from the Department of Agriculture or from his own cooperative. Now if he follows the expert's advice because he has found out that it paid his neighbor to do so, he is thereby forsaking part of his traditional independence. There is no doubt that whenever science becomes competent to tell us how to do a certain thing in the most efficient way, we thereby lose the freedom we had before of doing that

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thing in ten other ways. This leads to the uniformity and the regimentation that are well known in the physical and chemical industries; advances in biology are progressively extending them to agriculture. This is a trend in our changing civilization that is surely worth watching. Many of us have seen in our own lifetime the sudden appearance of the automobile, the airplane, and the radio, just as our students experience the newness of television. The public is apt to ascribe such miracle toys to a flash of invention in the brain of some wizard, and to miss the continuity of the tide, of superhuman size and power, that has been lifting mankind these past few centuries. It seems to me we are duty-bound to give our students some understanding of the vastness of the transformation that is going on, so as to prepare them for the changes that they are going to witness. For anyone who knows the tremendous amount of research that is being done nowadays in all countries—subsidized by three large groups: the universities, industry and the armed services—there can be no doubt that the changes that happened during our lifetime, considerable as they have been, will be succeeded in our students' lifetime by changes of comparable importance. Notice that those changes we have witnessed belong to two categories. Some of them could have been expected, such as progress in industrial and home equipment, or perhaps had been dreamt of, such as flying. But others were completely beyond imagination. Consider radio: nobody at the turn of the century would have thought that thirty years later it would be possible for the head of a state to address simultaneously all the men and women in the nation, sitting comfortably in their front parlors; and yet you know what Hitler did with that weapon and how President Roosevelt used it in answer. Without a doubt the changes that will occur in the second half of this century will belong to the same two categories: some we can imagine, or at least conceive —those deriving from progress in metallurgy, in electronics, in crop raising, in synthetic drugs, in the use of nuclear energy, and

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so forth; but others will come, we can be sure, of which we have no more idea today than people in 1900 had of radio. This is a familiar viewpoint to those of us who, in any capacity, are connected with science or industry; we expect to find, in every new issue of a periodical devoted to our special field, several new developments that we will have to absorb, and we look forward to reading from time to time in the daily press accounts of the more sensational advances in techniques far away from ours. And we have a sense of comradeship with the research scientist and the development engineer, even when they are working in fields about which we know very little; somehow our outlook and our methods are much the same. But to the man whose program in college has included no science, the scientist is speaking an utterly foreign tongue, and every new technical change appears as an isolated chance event, coming from nowhere and usually disturbing. (Color television is apparently such a disturbance, at the time I am writing. ) The chasm that separates the leaders of our society, in finance, in politics, in the press, from those who have direct knowledge of the evolutionary force that is at work in our world, is one of the most distressing elements in the present over-all situation. I am reminded of an anecdote I was reading the other day. A certain transcontinental railroad line was to be inaugurated, in Australia, I think; a number of important officials and members of the government were there and boarded the train bedecked with flags, and after many speeches the signal was given at last, the whistle blew, the band started playing, and the locomotive pulled out—but the train remained motionless: someone had forgotten to couple the locomotive to the train. I visualize the General Education course I am giving as an effort to couple to our technical society the brilliant students, men and women, who will have positions of leadership in the world of tomorrow.

W H A T T H E LAYMAN N E E D S TO K N O W ABOUT

SCIENCE

S. A. Coudsmit

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cience in General Education has not had my full attention and the only possible reason why I may have a contribution to make to this symposium is that, in addition to teaching physics students, I have had some direct experience in talking to laymen about science. By laymen, the other contributors to this symposium seem to mean college freshmen who are not going to be scientists, and the "low level" of their ability in science, especially in mathematics, has been the occasion for much comment. In recent years I have had the interesting and sometimes unhappy experience of having to discuss and explain scientific matters to real laymen—the kind that run around in Washington—and I have also given a series of lectures in New York City to nonphysicists on atomic and nuclear physics and on elementary physics. This experience has brought home the sad fact that the college freshmen do not provide a proper crosssection of the national ignorance. It may be helpful to describe these experiences, to tell a little about what I discovered and the difficulties I encountered. The first difficulty I met was a result of my own ignorance of the thinking of laymen and beginning students who have no knowledge whatever of what science really is. The general public tends to confuse science and the products of science. (I am tempted to ask how much of this state of mind is due to us as scientists, particularly the kind of statements we make about the practical value of our work when we want to raise money for

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our research.) The average man or woman is mainly interested in the products, in the immediate effect on him or her of the uses to which science can be put. New medicines, new refrigerators, new T V sets—with or without color—those are what interest the general public. Unfortunately, there is no general awareness of the fact that there is a long history behind each technological or medical innovation, and the fundamental concepts which in application make these innovations possible have an importance of their own in contributing to our understanding of the universe in which we live; especially is this the case nowadays. There was a time, not so long ago, when engineers used to say, "Oh, that's all right in theory, but it doesn't work in practice"—a comment that indicated a complacency on the part of the engineers and one that was very irritating to scientists; if a theory was any good, would it not work when put to the test of practice? The reason for this attitude on the part of engineers, and also of many businessmen and ordinary laymen, was that there was such a large gap between the work in the laboratory, that is, the pure science, and the applications of that research to the problems of daily living. In recent years, however, this gap has been getting smaller and smaller and in some cases has disappeared altogether. The nuclear physics worked out by "some obscure scientists" just before the last war led within a few years to the atomic bomb. In aerodynamics, a man who can solve some very highbrow differential equations works away at a blackboard until he obtains the desired results, then copies the equations on a piece of paper, takes them to the draftsman in the next office, and the shape of a new type of airplane wing has been born; moreover, it is known that the airplane with the new wing will fly and that the new wing may very well be an improvement over other airplane wings. In radio it is exactly the same. A purely theoretical development on a piece of paper, or the little trials in the laboratory, can immediately be put to use in some application. The

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engineer can no longer say that something is all right in theory but doesn't work in practice; the gap has disappeared. This is one of the reasons why I believe that the layman should be more interested in the fundamental side of science than he is, and should not so much confine his interest to the applications. I believe that an analysis would not show very much difference between talking about science to laymen and talking about science to freshmen. They both start on about the same footing. The freshman knows just as little, but he ends up by knowing more. Why? The reason is very revealing of the whole educative process in science. How do we teach science successfully in the university? Mostly by drilling, in other words, by constant repetition or reiteration. Now I am not a philosopher, yet I believe firmly in the definition of "understanding" that I learned from my old teacher in the Netherlands and which I have heard repeated by several colleagues. It is that "understanding" is nothing else than recognizing, becoming familiar with whatever it is you are supposed to understand. If you tell some one something and find that he does not understand it, you can come back a week later and tell him the same thing all over again in slightly different words and find that he now claims to have understood it. His understanding is nothing more than his growing familiarity with the idea. The same is true in courses in physics in which the lectures are supplemented by discussion sections; the students will say that they cannot understand the lecturer but that their section man has a wonderful ability for making things clear. Of course, the section man is only repeating what the lecturer said a few days earlier, but the fact of hearing it all for the second time means that the material is more understandable, that is to say, more familiar. This is the reason why students are asked to solve numerical problems in science courses; this device makes for a growing familiarity with the scientific ideas. A great part of the difficulty of understanding science comes from the slang that scientists

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like to use and the general conservatism that makes scientists cling to old words and expressions. In teaching science, therefore, the problem is to a considerable degree to make a student familiar with the words and operations that are used in expressing a scientific concept. In this respect the teaching of science may be likened to the technic of propaganda; just repeat the law of conservation of momentum, or the law of conservation of energy, often enough and the student will finally believe he understands it. In science there is such a large number of uncommon (or unfamiliar) concepts that it is very difficult to explain things to an outsider. The only things a nonscientist can understand or make his own are those with which he is thoroughly familiar; unfortunately, the experience of daily life makes us familiar with precious few of the objects and concepts that are important in science. As an example of the problem, let me show how it obtains in a wholly different field. I used to attend philosophy discussions at the University of Michigan and I noticed that whenever the topic began to get too abstract the philosophers would have to bring in a concrete example. The example that they always used was a table; let us suppose, they would say, that this table is endowed with some property or other representing some philosophical term. The term in question would then become familiar to everyone because of the familiarity of the table in front of them; the table was the familiar object leading the philosophers to understanding. I have often thought how interesting it would be to get a group of philosophers together in a room without a table; when the big debate began they would be in serious trouble! Unfortunately this is not as funny as it sounds, because the procedure is exactly the same when we teach science. We keep trying to bring our teaching back to the familiar, to concepts everyone knows, like the table, and very often our table is taken away from us. We have, therefore, a very odd arrangement whereby it becomes easy for someone to think he understands because

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of the familiarity, but the understanding is limited because the familiarity itself is limited. Let me illustrate what I mean by the concept of energy. Every physics student thinks he knows what energy is because he has dealt with it in so many ramifications. But his idea of energy will change as his knowledge of physics increases. Most laymen think of energy in terms of something they do with their hands. They pay for energy whenever they pay the electric bill—so and so many kilowatt hours. Even though energy cannot be pictured in the imagination, cannot be given a concrete visualization, it is a concept that is becoming more and more familiar with a growing number of people. Such people will come to think that they know what energy is and ask wisely how many kilowatt hours can be gotten out of this or that machine in a certain length of time, or what is the power delivered by a waterfall. Limited as the example of energy is, it does provide a case of the understanding of a scientific concept becoming more widespread. Unfortunately, it is not general; there are few such cases. And the important thing to remember is that such understanding is only the beginning; it cannot carry a person very far; it gives a working grip but not the answer. Students can go farther than laymen because they devote more time to study, but even science students may not go very much further than ordinary laymen unless they devote years to their subject. We may contrast the beginning of an understanding with a more mature view by examining a concept of great importance for physics students: waves. The only waves with which we have any familiarity are the waves on the surface of water. Physics teachers, therefore, always use water waves as an example whenever they are talking to elementary students about waves, whether sound waves or radio waves. A teacher just can't help drawing a wavy line on the blackboard and referring to the surface of the ocean or to the effect of dropping a stone into a lake. There is very little connection between radio waves and the water waves used as an illustration—practically none, as every

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teacher knows—and after a while it develops that the analogy is almost entirely wrong and misleading. Nevertheless, teachers go on using bad analogies that must later be discarded, and the reason for doing so is to make the concepts seem familiar to the student. Slowly, by repetition, by teaching a little more and more, and ending up by writing down some fancy equations which the student learns to use, the concept of radio waves as electromagnetic waves becomes familiar or understandable. Finally, some students will see through the original analogy and recognize that radio waves have nothing whatever to do with water waves or the wavy lines drawn on the blackboard. All this will have taken considerable time; acquiring experience and familiarity with scientific facts and scientific reasoning is a slow and laborious process and cannot be overly hastened. In science we take analogies not only from ordinary experience, but also from other branches of science. Such a situation may be exemplified in physics by the subject of acoustics. Not very long ago, acoustics was a science in which most scientists had lost interest. It was thought of as an old and dull subject until people began to pay a lot of money for better radios and phonographs. Then acoustics came into its own once again. But nobody knew very much about acoustics or how to deal with acoustical problems. However, by that time there was a large number of radio engineers who knew how to deal with radio vibrations and radio waves. The acoustical engineers who began to appear were simply radio engineers who had learned a new trade to satisfy the growing need. So they naturally used the language of radio waves to discuss acoustical waves. They designed horns, loudspeakers, acoustical channels, and so on, they studied room acoustics by using exactly the same formulas and concepts as the radio engineers. They learned to understand acoustics in radio terms and they continue to teach others in the very same way. As a result of the formalism that developed, it became possible to teach acoustics to a student of electrical engineering more easily than to other students because words like "resistance" or

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"impedance" represent concepts that electrical engineers already understand—at least, they claim to understand such words because they find them in their little handbooks, have used them for years and years, and are familiar with them. Drawing on that familiarity enables all acoustical problems to be translated into radio problems. Textbooks in acoustics often show a picture of a loud-speaker with the same formula properties as a radio circuit drawn below. It is said in effect: "You have already learned about this radio circuit. Therefore, you know all about this loud-speaker." Thus we encounter again the problem of familiarity. And so it goes on and on throughout the teaching of physics, and probably the other branches of science as well. The teacher begins with something well known to the student and then slowly draws away from it. The only possible procedure at the beginning is to invoke the familiar, but the result is that the teaching is often not very accurate and must eventually stand on its own, or must achieve such a familiarity in the student's mind with the concepts of the subject proper that the original examples may be left behind. It may even be that the usefulness of individual laboratory work in elementary science courses may be to provide more familiarity with the operations out of which concepts arise. This would be an adequate justification for student experiments. I do not, however, believe that other justifications can be validated. For example, I do not think the freshman learns "creative thinking" or "the scientific method" in the usual laboratory course. And as to the argument that the modern home is replete with mechanical and electrical gadgets, and that elementary laboratory instruction tends to make a person more useful in the home, I can only say that I have taught elementary, intermediate, and advanced laboratory work to undergraduates and graduate students for many years and I must confess that I still am unable to do anything helpful around the house. In the case of atomic structure, the subject that most interests the layman, we may see again how recourse is made to the fami-

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liar. I remember in the old days, before the war especially, there was only a mild interest in atoms except when, once in a while, newspapers wanted some story about atoms. You always had to compare an atom with something people knew. The atoms in those days before the atom bomb always had to be compared to a ball. In the fall it was a football, and in the spring it was a baseball, and between seasons it was a billiard ball. Of course this sort of thing can be pressed too far; I have noticed some elementary books that try to give the impression that an atom is the kind of thing you can visualize completely, that it is the wellknown figure of some ellipses and little ping-pong balls. Can we blame people who begin to believe this sort of thing? I have known students who really thought that an atom is something which, if you could see it under a microscope, would look like one of those wire structures with ping-pong balls scattered on the wires and something in the center that is called the nucleus. That is the result of an entirely wrong way of doing things. That is taking an analogy too literally and it spells trouble. A very abstract idea, with which civilized people have become more and more familiar, is the concept of God. Uneducated and primitive people, however, often picture God as an old man with a long white beard, sitting on a cloud, and this image completely satisfies them. It illustrates some of the attributes that they believe God possesses, such as wisdom and benevolence, which are usually associated with old people. In this example, we again feel the necessity of describing God by means of human characteristics. However, many have finally been able to go beyond this limitation. It can be stated that the picture often used to illustrate the structure of an atom in popular, and even advanced, textbooks is no more the likeness of an atom than the image of an old man is a likeness of God. In other words, the method of analogy must be used with caution. We have to give students a visual pattern at first, but we should do it with a warning. The students must know from the very first that this is only a rough approximation and but a

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sorry thing, to serve until they get a better familiarity with the concept. Making successively more accurate approximations to what an atom "is" can be done in two possible ways. We can either describe an atom as being something continuous, like jello, or we may describe it as having some structure wherein we can indicate definite points—here's a nucleus, there's an electron, and the atoms themselves are described by such points. Our limited daily life experience offers us only these two possibilities. Something concrete is either continuous, or it is discrete. We cannot think of an atom in any other way if we permit ourselves to visualize it. The reason that the concept itself is so elusive in the case of the atom is that it can be described about equally well in these two mutually contradictory ways. Both are familiar and neither is "correct." The two descriptions exist as actual and conflicting concepts of what the atom is. What is even worse is that whenever we perform an experiment in physics to find out the nature of an atom, we get the answer determined by the kind of apparatus we use! If we use apparatus that can detect waves, we find out that the atom has a wave nature. If we use apparatus that can detect particles, we discover that the atom has particle properties. The experiments come out that way because the instruments are man-made, and the two concepts, wave or particle, are the only two in terms of which we can build apparatus. The results of using either kind of equipment are usable within their own limits but the true nature of the atom seems to be something we cannot visualize. In other words, our daily life experience is insufficient to give us a true understanding of what is happening on the atomic level. But all is not lost. Several of the new concepts of physics gradually become a little bit clearer once the student understands that the physicist cannot help himself in the dual description of the atom. Thenceforth, the student comes to accept the duality as a consequence of the mode of experimentation.

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This, then, is the main difficulty we encounter in science teaching. We deal with new concepts and we try to convey them to our students—whether freshmen, laymen, or advanced studentseven though we are hardly familiar with the new concepts ourselves and are at times even contradictory in our presentations. We do not ever really understand these concepts, but by working a long, long time we begin to think we know what they mean. I think I know what energy is (although I really don't), and I think I know what light waves are (although I really don't). But the layman and the nonscience student do not have the familiarity with even these half-formed concepts or with the vague ideas behind them. They have not solved hundreds of problems, all about the energy of a particle going up or a particle going down, or to the right, or to the left. Here we reach the heart of what makes it so difficult to attain understanding. Gaining familiarity with a single concept is like erecting a huge pyramid of individual familiarities of which only the one at the apex is of importance. On the other hand, I sincerely believe that it is this same difficulty that makes science teaching so beautiful. As I see it, in teaching science you constantly widen the student's experience by telling him about observations he would not otherwise encounter and by introducing him to wholly new concepts. Not only is this the most important element in science education, and perhaps the general education of the student, but it is for the teacher the most enjoyable aspect of the job. I would like it to be clear that I do not mean just telling the student about little models, but rather telling him about the many difficulties in the way of arriving at scientific concepts, the difficulty we as scientists have in understanding these concepts ourselves, and showing him the compelling reasons for adhering to these new concepts on the basis of experiments done in the laboratory. I believe that any one who teaches science must emphasize such a discussion of concepts: not presenting the results of science in

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a dictatorial way, but always stressing the difficulties, the limitations, and the newness of the concepts involved. In this way only, will our students learn to appreciate the true character of modern science; and the science course will at once be more enjoyable to student and to teacher.

EDUCATION FOR CITIZENSHIP IN A TECHNICAL CIVILIZATION Edward C. Fuller

he development of culture is conditioned by the interaction of two disparate kinds of social forces: on the one hand, those that tend to preserve the habits, attitudes, and skills which either custom or utility has woven into the pattern of life; on the other hand, forces that tend to replace old ways of doing things with new and more effective ones, to displace traditional concepts with fresh ideas more rational or intelligible, to supplant customary materials with unfamiliar substances having more general utility or special advantages for particular purposes. In the dawn and early morning of man's cultural evolution the conservative forces were but slightly overbalanced by the tendencies that made for change. Civilization grew in complexity and power slowly; man had time to adjust and realign his social institutions to meet new conditions in his life. At present, the forces of cultural conservation are all but swamped by a forward surge of innovations that makes our social structure tremble with the load of readjustment placed upon it. This places heavy burdens on formal education as the institutional activity largely responsible for facilitating the adjustment of individuals to their society and of society to new conditions of life. So teaching science—like teaching anything—has two fundamentally different and sometimes antagonistic functions: ( 1 ) to preserve the heritage of knowledge and wisdom accumulated by the efforts of our intellectual forebears; that is, to maintain social

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continuity and stability; (2) to inspire the search for new knowledge, new syntheses of existing knowledge, new applications of knowledge lying fallow; that is, to promote social change and variation. As Paul B. Sears pointed out in his contribution to the Symposium on Science in General Education sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science on December 29, 1949, science has been exploited largely to produce social change. Its potentialities for promoting social stability have been too long neglected. The enormous proliferation of intellectual specialisms in the last fifty years has arisen primarily because specialization has been so fruitful in the discovery of new knowledge. But specialism has become so intensified that to achieve broad syntheses of thought which will make an ordered pattern of the specialists' fragments of knowledge becomes a task of critical importance. Should the teaching scholar, then, abandon specialism and concentrate his full powers on interpreting and interrelating facts and theories supplied by others, or should he strive through depth of penetration in one field to discover relations with others? The immediate and practical values to be gained from specialized research as well as the social momentum of specialized activity, which carries so much prestige in our society, will combine to prolong for many years what we might term the ascendancy of the specialist. Should the teacher, then, prepare his students to be specialists who will find their places readily in established currents of thought and action, or should he promote their growth as generalists who will, by virtue of their breadth, turn streamlets of specialization into main channels of common understanding? In a highly technical civilization like ours, human relations become less personalized and more stereotyped. The worker loses his individuality and becomes "labor." The supervisor is no longer a man but "management." The housewife who formerly bargained with the farmer selling his vegetables from door to door has be-

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come the "consumer" pushing her cart around the supermarket and buying the brand of canned tomatoes that is proclaimed best in the loudest radio show. The minute divisions of labor that are an ever-present, if not an inescapable, part of our technical civilization have so atomized the thoughts and activities of men and women that unity of spirit and common understanding are goals which are no longer by-products of normal life but must be consciously cultivated by every means at our disposal. At the same time, these very divisions of labor make every individual starkly dependent on the work of a host of his fellow men for even the barest necessities of life. To preserve in our technological culture the heritage of our political democracy, which was nurtured in an agrarian and handicraft economy, we must cultivate a breadth of common understanding that will surmount the barriers of divided labors and group interests. We must infuse our people with loyalties and faith which will enable them to see that what is good for democratic society is good for the individual too. While we are teaching the skills of specialization that are the woof of our social fabric we must extend the threads of cultural continuity that serve as its warp. The vigor of American research and technology bears eloquent testimony to our success in training the specialist in pure and applied science. The mixture of awe, suspicion, and even fear with which the layman looks on our work is equally clear indication of our failure to interpret science to him effectively. The rapid growth of interest in teaching science for the citizen is evidence of our desire to remove that defect. As one reads the ever-growing stream of writing about this new interest, he notes that four objectives are stated repeatedly. They may be summarized briefly as follows: 1. To acquaint the student with the scientific habit of thought and to encourage his using it in attacking problems of everyday living; 2, To give an understanding and appreciation of the develop-

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ment of science as one of man's great intellectual and cultural achievements; 3. To impart sufficient knowledge of man's physical and biological environment to enable the student to function intelligently in relation to it; 4. To disclose the impact of science and technology on contemporary life and to interpret some aspects of the social problems that arise from it. It is clear that objectives as broad as these cannot be encompassed in any one-year course. It is equally plain that aims which are thus classified to facilitate thinking about General Education are not mutually exclusive. Further, it is evident that these objectives are important in teaching the student who plans a career in science as well as the one who will do his daily work in other fields. The healthy development of our body politic depends upon the present thought and action of some hundred million of our fellow adults and the future wisdom of thirty million youngsters now at various stages in their schooling, not to mention the twenty million of preschool age. The less than 1 percent of us who are scientists have a heavy responsibility to see to it that the millions know enough about us and our work to maximize its benefits and minimize its misuse. We need, in the words of Justus J. Schifferes, 1 "a middle class in science," a vast group of citizens who will fill the present yawning gap "between the expert and the ignoramus." Science teaches us "to generalize our conception of the resources which the human mind possesses for the exploration of nature; to understand how man discovers the real facts of nature, and by what tests he can judge whether he has really found them. Our whole working power depends upon knowing the laws of the world—the properties of the things we have to work with, among, upon . . . Without an elementary knowledge of scientific truths, the public never knows what is certain and what is not; 1

J. J. Schifferes, A. A. A. S. Bulletin 4, 1 ( 1 9 4 5 ) .

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who are entitled to speak with authority, and who are not. They have no faith in the testimony of science, or they are the ready dupes of charlatans and imposters. They alternate between ignorant distrust and blind, often misplaced, confidence." These words were written by John Stuart Mill about a hundred years ago. They have grown more pertinent as the increasingly rapid tempo of cultural change makes ever more dangerous the risk of social action based upon either ignorant distrust or blind confidence. Today, when momentous political decisions must be made on the basis of scientific and technical information, we must make an all-out effort to inform both the few who must make the decisions and the many who must understand and accept them. Because political decisions that will affect science and technology must be made now, next month, and next year, we cannot develop the needed middle class in science by concerning ourselves only with students in the schools and colleges. We must also devise means of producing scientific understanding among our contemporaries, for they are the public whose opinion, in the last analysis, determines the decisions of our leaders. We have an even more immediate task than this. While we are schooling our students to assume their responsibilities as the future middle class in science and reducing scientific illiteracy among our contemporaries, we must make special efforts to see that our political leaders are well informed concerning the scientific and technological aspects of governmental policy and action under consideration. In this connection it is encouraging to note the recommendations in a comprehensive report recently submitted to the Department of State by Lloyd V. Berkner of the Carnegie Institution.2 It is proposed that a special office headed by a scientist and with a scientifically trained staff at home and overseas be established in the Department to serve in an advisory capacity in the conduct of the nation's foreign relations. In order to promote 2

Reported in Chem. Eng. News 28, 2050 ( 1 9 5 0 ) .

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a better understanding of issues involving science and technology, members of the Department would be advised regularly by this special staff, and, in time of major crisis, by a committee of eminent scientists appointed by the National Academy of Sciences. It is further suggested that the National Research Council might well "furnish advice on the dissemination of scientific information, the selection and briefing of delegates to international meetings, and the conduct of special surveys." The creation of similar bodies of scientists to serve in an advisory capacity to other executive agencies and to the Congress would be of great help in bridging the gap while a new generation of leaders who are literate in science is prepared to take its position of responsibility in the future. To make the larger body of our adult contemporaries aware of the limitations as well as the powers of science, we must use radio broadcasts, television, public lectures, motion pictures, exhibits in the schools, and any other devices we can think of. Adult education, which is just now in its infancy, should be sponsored by high schools, colleges and universities. Each can make special contributions to this important phase of General Education in science. Beginnings have been made along these lines. Telecasts on scientific topics have been made in the Twin Cities area by the Minnesota Section of the American Chemical Society, other technical societies, and the University of Minnesota. 3 Similar activities have been undertaken by the Southern California Section of the American Chemical Society. Cultivating a broad understanding of science by the adult population is not merely a matter of future benefit but of present necessity. The postwar ardor of the public for the science and technology that were so potent a factor in winning the war has somewhat cooled. The fact that it took four years to get the bill establishing a National Science Foundation through Congress is a reflection of the low temperature of the public passion for 3

H. M. Baker, Chem. Eng. News 28, 2079 (1950).

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science. The host of social problems raised by the onward march of technology has caused many people to wonder whether science may not ultimately be our destroyer instead of the savior we had thought it to be. The continual speed-up in our lives created by the rapid communication and transportation spawned by technology has drawn the nerves of many men so tight that they question whether life is not becoming more difficult rather than more comfortable. The motion picture, radio, and television have waxed so strong in their influence on the public mind that thoughtful men are wondering whether mass media may not slacken the sinews of the public mind and make it peculiarly susceptible to the demagogue and propagandist. If science is to enjoy the support of the public so that it may develop fruitfully, its function, manner of growth, limitations, and powers must be known by the man in the street. As a matter of convenience for discussion, then, our task of educating for citizenship in a technical civilization may be considered threefold: ( 1 ) giving our scientifically illiterate political leaders the understanding they need to make wise decisions when science and technology are involved; (2) teaching our adult contemporaries enough of science that they can intelligently throw their weight in the balance when public opinion must be brought to bear in making and enforcing such decisions; (3) preparing today's students to assume the responsibility of tomorrow's citizens in shaping public policy that involves science and technology. When we consider the third aspect of our task we are on familiar ground. In analyzing it two questions come to mind: 1. What should we try to accomplish for the six and a half million boys and girls in our high schools who, with their fellow students of future years, will form the solid core of our citizenry? 2. What larger aims should we have in teaching science to the two and a half million college students who we hope will be the leaders in tomorrow's democratic society? I recognize that these questions arbitrarily delete consideration

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of many educational activities, but my ignorance of pre-highschool instruction bids me leave discussion of that to others. Further, I am aware of the inadequacies of my understanding and the gaps in my knowledge of secondary education, but I feel that those of us who teach underclassmen in college must at least try to see our job as the continuation of processes begun in high school. It seems to me that science in the secondary school should be taught as an integrated whole, but may well introduce the student to the varieties of approach to natural phenomena characteristic of physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. While showing that the same phenomenon may be studied with peculiar profit from the different viewpoints of these sciences, the major emphasis of instruction should be on understanding nature rather than on differentiating biology from chemistry or physics from astronomy. But understanding nature is a lifelong job. We must then choose some few fundamental concepts which we believe to be of key importance for comprehending at least the main outlines of contemporary science. Morris Meister, in his contribution to the Symposium on Science in General Education sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science on December 29, 1949, suggested a number of such concepts. They may be summarized briefly as follows: 1. Living things can arise only from other living things of the same kind. 2. Matter cannot be created or destroyed. 3. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. 4. Heat is a mode of motion. 5. Matter is composed of different kinds of electric particles. 6. The creatures of today have descended by gradual change from different and usually simpler creatures of the past. 7. All life tends to reproduce its own kind. 8. The leaf of the green plant is the place where food is manufactured.

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9. Living things are made up of cells that contain a material called protoplasm. 10. Without certain food substances, many animals, including man, cannot remain healthy. 11. Light, the different colors, radio, x-rays are all different kinds of electromagnetic waves. 12. All the different substances we know are composed of different numbers and arrangements of the same ninety or so elements. 13. Stars are very distant suns. 14. The earth on which we live pulls all nearby objects toward its center. 15. The rocks in the crust of the earth contain a record of how the earth and life on it have changed in the past. To these I would add: 16. Matter is an extremely concentrated form of energy and conversions of one into the other can be made under very special conditions. 17. Intelligence is not correlated with color of skin or other physical characteristics. No doubt there are other basic concepts which should be added to this list. When the secondary school can so order the teaching of science that a graduate has sufficient knowledge of these concepts to act in the light of them as he goes about the business of living, then a great step forward will have been taken. While we are waiting for that happy day, those of us who teach in college would do well to strive for the same understanding among our students. In the long run, however, the goal of teaching science as a part of General Education in college should be, I believe, a more sensitive appreciation and deeper understanding of science than that called for above. If the college graduate of today is to be the leader of tomorrow, he should know not only key concepts of science but also how facts are discovered, how a hypothesis attains the stature of a scientific theory, how scientists think,

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under what circumstances the scientific habit of thought is applicable and when it is not. In short, he needs to be familiar with some of the history and philosophy of science if he is to see it in proper relation to other phases of intellectual activity and social process. But even this is not enough. Upon seeing science ( and its offspring, technology) in the matrix of modern society, one cannot help but be struck by their tremendous effect on our daily lives and how much our future welfare depends upon the proper encouragement of research in pure science and the beneficent application of its findings. Some examples of social problems whose solutions call for scientific knowledge will illustrate the significance of this objective. 1. Integration of racial and cultural minorities into a democratic society. Until a vast majority of our citizens understand that the human beings now inhabiting the earth are of one species whether they are black, white, yellow, or brown; until they realize that superior individuals and superior families arise at different times among different peoples in different places; until they understand that artistic ability, intelligence, manual skill, and a host of other human qualities vary more among individuals in a given group than among groups—until that time it will be whispered that negroes are stupid, that Jews are avaricious, that Japanese are untrustworthy, et cetera ad nauseam, and social reactions to minority groups will be conditioned more by the hypothalamus than by the cerebrum. 2. Scientific secrets and national defense. Until the rank and file of our citizenry realize that science flourishes in direct proportion to the freedom with which ideas flow among scientists; until they know that, in the words of one of the great research directors of our time, "when you lock the doors of your laboratory you lock out more than you lock in"; until they understand that science is bounded by no American, Russian, Japanese, British, or German border but only by the frontiers of the collective mind of man—until then, the researcher, student, and administrator in

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science, the Edward Condons and the David Lilienthals, will be hampered in their vital work by persons who would make political capital out of the ignorance of the common citizen, who confuse science with technology, who jeopardize the future welfare of their country because they have not been educated to see the woods through the trees. 3. Exploitation of nuclear energy. The furore about the H-bomb and the recent proposal by the chairman of the board of one of our large industrial enterprises that his company lease uranium from the federal government, use it in a nuclear reactor to produce power for private sale, and then return the uranium to the government for processing to recover plutonium, bring to the fore again the whole complex of social problems raised by the discovery of how to release the enormous energies of nuclear reactions. Having once made the decision through our Congress that we wish the fundamental research concerned with nuclear reactions and the technical development of power from nuclear fission to be directed by a special federal commission, we are now under some pressure from the rival interests of the military man and the industrialist to change our minds. The recent politicking about the appointment of members to the Atomic Energy Commission has further beclouded what seemed a few years ago to be a pretty clear-cut issue. The intelligent solving and resolving of the political and social problems attendant upon the use of nuclear energy will depend upon getting and maintaining a generally high order of scientific literacy among both our leaders and the populace at large. 4. Scientific manpower and national defense. The tragic waste of man's life and work in time of war is known to all. The gross misuse of scientific talent in two world wars is realized by but a few. It must be made clear to everyone that as we strengthen our sinews for defense of that democracy in which each man's talents can be brought to full flower, particular care must be taken to use every man's gift where it will be most effective. Only scientifically trained leaders supported by a people fully informed

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of the nature and potentialities of science will be able so to arrange the selection of young men for their country's service that maximum value will be realized for all. 5. Conservation of mineral resources. The sheer volume of manufacture, diversity of products made, and multiplicity of materials consumed by our enormous industrial machine should impress all of us with the need to look carefully to the sources of supply that feed our voracious economy. But only recently have the warning voices of the conservationists been audible above the din of applause for bigger sales volumes and better production indices. We are just now waking up to the sobering fact that our resources are not unlimited—that we have so depleted our stocks of oil and ores as to make increasingly extensive imports necessary. The man in the street who expects the man with the test tube to find a suitable substitute for anything in short supply must be taught that the scientist has power to transform many of nature's unpromising materials into useful substances, but that, in many cases, these require more manhours of labor per useful unit than the products that they replace. To achieve optimum return for the sweat of his brow, man should conserve nature's riches and exploit them with maximum efficiency. This is a lesson that can be learned effectively through studying scientific principles and their application to technology. 6. Conservation of agricultural resources. We have so long been accustomed in this country to prodigality in using our supplies of land and water that only dramatic episodes are effective in arousing the public to the need to take thought for the future of our children's children. Dakota dust in the air over Manhattan in the 1930's and shaveless Thursdays in 1950 have brought home even to the city dweller the twin problems of right use of land and conservation of water. The extensive "mining" of our rich soils to the ruination of the economy of entire agricultural regions in our country is a story that needs to be told to every citizentold with sufficient background in the biology and chemistry of soil that he can really understand the key importance of irreplace-

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able phosphates, the vital role of nitrogen, the delicate balance of living organisms that condition nature's productivity for man. The falling water tables that have followed the plundering of our forests all over the country during the last hundred years are forcing us to face the fact that profit to be gained by one group's exploitation of natural resources may be paid for by the losses of others' reward for labor. The activity of the lumberman in the mountains has a powerful influence on the returns the farmer in the valley gets from his work. When most of our citizens have a better understanding of the forces in nature that must be carefully balanced if man's environment is to favor his activities, we can expect more intelligent public policy in the development of natural resources for the good of the many rather than the profit of the few. One might add many more examples to illustrate the need for scientific literacy in our populace if we are to develop public policies that will conduce to the greatest good for the greatest number. To explore them, to make them vivid and explicit is one of the important tasks for teachers of science as a part of General Education. To summarize: The growth of our culture, like that of any culture, depends upon a moderate preponderance of social forces that conduce to change and innovation over those that make for stability and repetition. At present, the forces for change so far outweigh those for maintaining the status quo that our culture is too fluid and unstructured for the comfort of most men. This discomfort shows itself in uneasy relations between individuals and among groups, in the almost frenetic concern for security—personal security, class security, national security. One of the great forces stimulating change has been the spectacular—one might almost say explosive—advance of science and technology in the first half of this century. The tremendous proliferation of specialism in our culture has not only stimulated the discovery of new knowledge which has accelerated social change but also atomized people's interests and activities to the

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point where democratic action based on common experience and community of interest is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. As teachers of science we must train the specialists so essential to our technical civilization. We must also educate our citizenry to value the scientific habit of thought, to appreciate scientific achievements, to understand the physical and biological environment which must be controlled for man's benefit, and to direct the applications of science and technology for maximum benefit to society. To achieve these objectives in science for the citizen we must concern ourselves with teaching in elementary and secondary schools, in colleges and universities. While encouraging institutionalized adult education, we must supplement it with efforts to create the needed middle class in science through the media of mass communication. We must make special efforts to see that our political leaders are well informed when they are making decisions that can be wise only if they are based on a sound understanding of particular aspects of science or technology. Only by such widespread efforts shall we make our full contribution toward creating that admirable citizen, able, in the words of Milton, "to perform justly, skillfully and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war."

Some Problems in the Teaching of Biology

AN A P P R O A C H TO T H E T E A C H I N G OF B I O L O G Y TO

NONSCIENTISTS

Edward S. Castle

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he field of biological science, of which I am a representative, is in a sense again bringing up the rear—as happens so often. It would be interesting to explore the reasons for this fact. It might be, for example, that physical scientists have a social conscience and an educational zeal above and beyond that of biologists. But I shall restrict myself to pointing out that the peculiar fact that the Harvard General Education program presently contains only one version of a course in biological science—as contrasted with the four parallel courses in physical science—is largely an accident rooted in local circumstance, and is not the result of a deliberate plan. Least of all should it be supposed that because of this odd fact Harvard believes it has the answer to the problems of General Education in biological science. In view of the restricted range of experimentation in this area, exactly the reverse is more probable. For the past three or four years, I have been working at the problem of giving one version of such a course, first with the able collaboration of W. T. Edmondson (now at the University of Washington) and more recently with G. E. Erikson, who is also contributing to this symposium. I shall not attempt to describe the course in any detail. I should prefer to air some of my prejudices and attitudes in approaching this general problem. As I listen to my distinguished colleagues and think of books that I have read, I am very much struck by the fact that there is nothing new under the sun or in education. I mean that no matter the guise under which we approach science in General

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Education, we all seem to be striving in our different ways to introduce meaning and value into what we are teaching, whether this be biological science or physical science. I have not the slightest doubt that these goals would also be professed by any sincere instructor teaching a conventional, departmental, introductory course in a single science—provided his career permitted him the luxury of concern with education. Meaning and value are, I recognize, extremely vague terms, but I nevertheless think they are not only the common denominator of our various efforts but also the sole real excuse for our activities as would-be educators. I am glad that the question has been raised whether it really is necessary to study science. I am uneasy lest we assume too readily that students ought to know what we know—primarily because we know it and have, at least unconsciously, a vested interest therein. Of course we talk bravely about the need for scientifically literate political leaders, and we know almost too well that science has immense social implications. But I wonder how much of our teaching of science really achieves the goals we would like to think it ought to. It is too bad that we just don't know. In my opinion both praise and damnation from students while they are in college are largely irrelevant, and the real answers could only be obtained fifteen, or twenty-five, or conceivably seventy-five years later. I notice that in conferences like the present one we all talk freely about "scientists," "nonscientists," "nonscience majors," "laymen," and the like. I happen to have a particular dislike for the term "layman" as so used, for it inevitably suggests that there is something special about either the scientist or his opposite number. Of these terms the most neutral is "nonscientist," but they all controvert what we are really trying to do. At the mature, professional level such designations are inescapable, but what can one say about freshmen in a liberal arts college? Is Richard Roe a scientist or a nonscientist? Except in terms of probabilities, I do not see that we know, or can know, at all. But aside from the difficulties that this uncertainty introduces

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into the planning of student curricula, I myself think that rigorously segregated education in the sense suggested would perpetuate an unwholesome distinction among educated men. I do believe that unless the lesson is learned that one cannot live either without science or with science alone, the battle is lost. For this reason we have for some years assigned to our students T. H. Huxley's essay "We Are All Scientists." Since I am not a historian or a philosopher of science, the course that I have helped to plan at Harvard has to be, basically, a kind of subject-matter course. This does not mean that we fail to seize upon snips and bits of philosophy and of biological history when we see them, but our course is primarily topical in outline. It is my faith that this subject matter should on the whole, granted limitless inspiration on the part of the instructor, be capable of speaking for itself. Where then do we stand within the hierarchy of so-called biological courses? The answer will depend on the position of the asker: I have felt in recent years that my colleagues in the department of which I am a member think of me as an ageing young man who is picking petunias in the snow; on the other hand, to many others I must appear tremendously conservative. I can only say that I am not insensible of these opposing pressures. If I confess that ours is basically a subject-matter course, I must add that it is, and has to be, highly selective with regard to content. To my mind, science education was emancipated from bondage by whoever decided that we did not have to try to teach everything in the books. Such selective courses now seem to be rather generally known as of the "block-and-gap" type, though I must always resist the desire to call them "block-andtackle" courses. But I should like to point out a really elegant paraphrase of this terminology. In one of his short stories, Henry James wrote of a man living in a comparatively bare room, which he described as "a great square fair chamber, all beautified with omissions." How apt this would be if it could be said of our selective courses!

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Content must be selected, but what are the grounds of selection? My personal rationalization of the choice of content is that the subjects dealt with should, as far as possible, relate to matters of general human interest. This too is perhaps a vague and unspecific statement, since the interests of different human beings differ. But I have found it helpful to put the question to myself in the following way: what does a biologist know in his professional capacity that is of interest and importance to his fellow men? I do not exclude the possibility that the answer might be: nothing; but if we imagine a general and intelligent discussion between, say, a biologist, a theologian, a physicist, and a business man, I am interested to wonder what could be the specific contribution of the biologist. The thing I like about this situation, imaginary as it is, is that it deprives the professional biologist of his customary refuge: he cannot say, "You don't know enough for me to talk to you. Go away and read some books, take some courses, learn about the animal kingdom; then we can talk." He has to deliver on the spot and, unless I misjudge him, can scarcely admit that in his joint capacity as a man and as a scientist he has nothing to say. Whatever method of soul searching we use, we end up by having selected for our courses such content as we individually think is generally interesting, or important, and containing the germs of certain satisfactions. Others have indicated the wide range of possible satisfactions in the study of science: intellectual, historical, aesthetic (so often glossed over in such discussions), and not least the satisfaction of understanding the power that comes from the use of scientific knowledge. I think it would be a mistake to specify any one of these as particularly important: we want all of them, and Heaven too, if we can get them. I often think we indulge in extremely fine-spun rationalizing about the way we plan courses. Somehow we suggest to one another, and I wonder if we do to the world, that we are smart enough to sit down in a comfortably stuffed chair and lay out mentally a course that will have the maximum aesthetic content,

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teach an understanding of science on the right, what science is about on the left, how to think scientifically up yonder, man's place in nature down below, and so on and on. Do we really formulate these high-sounding objectives first, and then devise a course that fulfills them? I don't believe it. By way of analogy, I have in mind the writing of scientific papers, about which I first learned vividly from my friend Selig Hecht, the Columbia biophysicist. Hecht was the author of extremely polished papers which always left me with the feeling that his work was planned with incomparable logic and foresight. I was greatly encouraged about myself when he pointed out to me once that this impression of order and logic was an illusion; that in the actual work he had floundered and blundered the way people have always blundered and floundered; that the illusion was generated after the fact in the actual writing of the paper. I think it is difficult to avoid creating a similar illusion when we talk about courses we have been giving. Rather than set up some list of perhaps overintellectualized objectives, I should prefer to face the fact that we all share the experience of being alive in a finite world. This experience is full of paradoxes, challenges, satisfactions. What bearing does scientific knowledge have on these? If it has a bearing, that should be our concern. And I am confident that both physics and biology relate to the ever-valid query of the psalmist, "What is man that thou art mindful of him?" But let me speak a little more concretely and less rhapsodically about our version of a course in biological science. I assumed in planning the course there is such a thing as a science of life, and that this is not synonymous with a set of facts and principles about the vegetable part of the world, attached to a set of facts and principles about the animal part of the world. Many of those who reside in departments of botany and zoology will know that this assumption has in numerous institutions evoked academic warfare out of proportion to its seemingly modest nature. At Harvard the extradepartmental nature of the Committee on

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General Education has been a positive encouragement to uncompartmented planning. As a physiologist, I think that the time has come to emphasize not so much the diversities in the living world as the existence of common underlying principles and interdependencies. And the pronounced physiological and ecological bias of our course unquestionably reflects the attitudes of its original planners, Doctor Edmondson and myself. After certain preliminaries, we have begun the course with a consideration of the basic chemistry of the processes of life, especially from the standpoint of energy. Building on this elementary but I think all-important foundation, we have explored nutrition and the problems of respiratory regulation, and then the common denominators in the processes of reproduction and in the embryological development of animals. In the second term, we have dealt with aspects of genetics, evolution, and ecological relations, and have wound up with an incursion into behavior from a comparative and physiological point of view. As to methods of instruction, which I think are of very great importance in anything that might be called General Education, our course offers no innovations. Suspicious as I am of the utility of lecturing to students, we have had to do it, and I think the increasing formality that comes with increase in the size of the course is one of the greatest hazards we face. In this situation I have strained to avoid being didactic, since that means acceding to the very general desire on the part of students simply to be told. But I often feel that even vast contortions have not brought forth so much as a mouse. At such times I can only console myself with the thought that the subtle processes of education perhaps demand a perceptible degree of frustration on the part of both student and instructor. In view of the unknowns and intangibles in human development, I make this suggestion not lightly. In addition to a thread of continuity and progression that we hope is maintained by the lectures, our course has reading in an introductory textbook, reading in perhaps a dozen books "for

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the general reader," and laboratory work of sorts. This last is chiefly illustrative of what is going on in other parts of the course, when there are things that lend themselves to study, demonstration, or discussion in the laboratory. As every instructor knows, laboratory work in a course of this kind is fraught with dangers, practical difficulties, and varying degrees of success. And yet I believe that an effort should be made, perhaps particularly in the sphere of biological science, to bring students into reasonably immediate contact with real things and phenomena. Finally, we have paid much attention to examinations which, perhaps by virtue of my personal obstinacy, have tended to be of the explanatory, interpretative, essay type. I believe that examinations are of crucial importance: on the one hand, to the examiner, in forcing him, if he can depart from the practices of simple expediency, to make explicit the kind of thing he would like his students to know or, better, be able to write about; on the other hand, to the student, in helping him to realize what is expected of him, not merely in terms of brute study but also in terms of understanding and written communication. From this point of view, I see small virtue and a positive deception in quizzing students on their retention, in no context whatever, of snips of information. I am sure that in our experience so far with this particular approach to the teaching of biological science we have made many mistakes. Perhaps my own major misjudgment has to do with the disparity between my dream of an intelligent colloquy between interested adults of various callings and the bare fact that we are engaged in predominantly freshman education. I do not know how to bridge this gap, but I doubt whether anyone really does. I am highly skeptical of guidance that might be thought derivable from the psychology of the learning process or the physiology of adolescence. Perhaps the best any would-be educator can do, in the clear absence of a science of education, is to grope, in what seems to be his own best fashion, toward the art of teaching.

THE G E N E R A L EDUCATION COURSE IN BIOLOGY: LABORATORY WORK AND G E N E R A L O B J E C T I V E S George E. Erikson

ince much of the general background material for my subject has been adequately considered in the preceding papers, I should like to come immediately to two specific topics. The first is a very concrete and practical matter: Should there be laboratory work in a General Education biology course? The second is a more general and fundamental question: What are the objectives of such a course? The immediate reaction of many teachers is, "Of course there is to be laboratory work in our General Education science courses; they wouldn't be science courses if there weren't." The basic assumption is apparently that first-hand observation and experiment, thoughtfully executed and considered, are essential in any serious attempt to introduce students to the methods and scope of science. Yet after only a little experience, many teachers reverse their decision. While they agree that requiring individual laboratory work of all students is "in accordance with the best theory," experience causes them to doubt its practicability, necessity, or even desirability. In any case they find that they accomplish their ends as effectively and more economically by other pedagogic techniques. Many of the physical scientists (including those at Harvard) seem to have abandoned the laboratory for students. The majority of the biologists are willing to confess that they are sorely tempted to omit the laboratory—that it taxes their resources of space, equipment, finances, and teaching time and ability—but

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that they cannot do so with a clear conscience. It does not follow that the physical scientists should be suffering the pangs of a stricken conscience; it may well be that many of the phenomena of physics and chemistry lend themselves to diagramming and demonstration without the loss of elements essential to the nonscientist student's experience. Biologists, however, dealing with "higher levels of integration" of matter, find that there are aspects of their subject that cannot be fully grasped by the mere use of words, diagrams, photographs, or demonstrations to large groups. They insist that a real knowledge of the biological world requires the use of all the senses and a direct encounter of student with object. I believe that this insistence is fully justified and that its justification lies in the second matter under consideration, that of our objectives in teaching biology to nonscientists. The previous papers include much discussion of the objectives of General Education science teaching. I should not broach the matter again if I found these reviews adequate for my purposes. As I have gathered it, two major goals are emphasized: 1. To inform students of a certain selection of scientific data and generalizations that are considered of either practical or "liberal education" value to a citizen of the twentieth century. The teaching of basic facts is certainly a sine qua non of any course, but if this were our prime objective w e would do better to send our students to the standard introductory courses where the teaching of factual material is the primary aim. The dangers w e face lie not so much in failure to cover some areas of our science as in lacking the rare wisdom of omission that must accompany the rare genius for selection. It is the well-nigh universal verdict of General Education teachers that, while w e hope to turn out well-informed students in some selected respects, this must be subservient to our second objective. 2. To acquaint students with the principles of science and help them to think scientifically. This is a more significant objective since it presupposes something of the first and gives it meaning and value—having perhaps some of that educational element de-

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fined as "what you have left after you've forgotten what you learned." The point has repeatedly been made that the muchvaunted "scientific method" proves very elusive of definition and that whatever it is precisely, it is extremely difficult to find clear-cut, documented cases of its use by the authors of major scientific discoveries. So often have accident, blind hunch, right answer from wrong premises, and prejudice played the crucial role that it is clear that some of our most significant scientific discoveries are the happy result of "unscientific methods." Though we find difficulty in attempting to define "the method of science," and especially in trying to illustrate that "method" in action except in highly artificial pedagogical exercises invented for the purpose, there is no denying that there is something we can do to help students reduce haphazard and illogical thought processes, and in so doing contribute toward alleviating some of the tragic problems born of ignorance and superstition. Now certainly these are some laudable results of any biological course worthy of the name—that the student should come away with a stock of biological facts and principles and with some cognizance of their foundations and their history. He is thereby better equipped as a citizen in a world that will penalize him for ignorance of these facts and principles and that has plentiful lures for specious thinking. These certainly stand high on our list of objectives. But, while they are necessary, are they sufficient? I can hardly believe that they would seriously be claimed as such by a teacher of any but the stuffiest of fact-cataloguing courses. They strike me as reasons after the fact, as justification and rationalization for behavior motivated on quite different grounds. If we speak in all candor, without straining to impress curriculum committees, government supporters, and hard-boiled benefactors of all kinds, won't we confess that any researcher, teacher, or student does his best creative work simply and purely from a delight in the things themselves and a fascination in finding out about them? It is true that in the inevitable periods of doldrums and the long periods of the necessary ditch-digging

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kind of labor between inspirations, the scientist fortifies himself with assurances that his work has some practical or academic value and spurs himself on with visions of economic, social, or professional rewards. But isn't the real motivating force, even as a faint still-remembered lure in days of prosaic routine, the faith that labor and study bring delight in beauty and the joy of enlightenment? And isn't the sharing of this the real function of a teacher, and isn't our real goal the assurance of its continued working in our students—guaranteeing the other objectives which are secondary and derived from it? Can it be denied that our objectives, no matter how secondary or derived, must be conceived and executed with this in mind? And will it not be admitted by even the best of teachers that it is a continual and trying challenge, and never assured of more than a minor degree of success? Certainly all will agree that we hope that our students somehow will catch a live spark of interest in our field, that it will develop into a real active searching and growth that will be organically relevant in a wide range of interests, academic and otherwise, and will continue as a rich element throughout their lives in matters that really count. But just as certainly will not most agree that, while this is devoutly to be wished, the sad fact is that the majority of our students (especially in required distribution courses) do not develop even a spark of lasting interest, that they take our efforts as docilely as possible, finding it a tolerable but quite irrelevant necessity soon to be forgotten; or, if sometimes stimulating, only when it is a "hellzapoppin" kind of gadgetry show or a glamorous tour de force of the latest wizardry of applied science? In the jargon of the educationalists, can't we say that our tasks are those of motivation, relevance, and real worth? At this juncture only the most naïve will expect that I am about to produce the panacea. The world and its teachers are too resigned to this ubiquitous problem ever to expect one. But every teacher is eager for any and all suggestions of remedies or for confirmation of his own views. Perhaps I may be forgiven, on the

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plea of enthusiasm, for claiming that the element I find lacking in modern biology is one calculated to relieve a good measure of these problems. I am about to make a plea for a revitalized natural-history approach as a large and fundamental element in our General Education biology courses—in fact for those in the physical sciences as well, should they need it. Natural history is an old name for an honorable study. I need not trace its history from Aristotle to the present, though such a survey would, I believe, support my thesis. This has been admirably done by able and wise scholars1 to whom I refer all would-be slanderers of this good name. Surely everyone will concede that until very recent times all science proudly wore the title of natural philosophy, and that later, when this seemed too all-inclusive, the older name of natural history was applied to the biological section; and with equal certainty that nearly all biological work up until, say, the nineteenth century, and a very large proportion of that prolific century's discoveries, must be labeled natural history. That title was given up in a multitude of fragments spawned from the mother field as these fragments became laboratory specialties with their own peculiar applications of instruments and techniques. This spawning and respawning in succeeding generations has produced a whole coterie of proud offspring, all, seemingly, a little ashamed of their oldfashioned grandam. This has brought us to our present predicament. Justly proud of the triumphs that rigorous specialization has made possible, we suffer the neuroses born of centrifugal specialization within our sciences and growing isolation from the humanities. The cure has been promised from the history of science. I feel that her helpmate in this, as far as the biological sciences are concerned, must be the study that traces its title back to the same root, historia. 1 Huxley, T. H., "On the Study of Biology" (1876) in Science and Education, vol. Ill of "authorized edition" of Complete Works, pp. 262-293 (esp. pp. 263-271); Wheeler, W. M., What Is Natural History? Bull.

Boston S oc. Nat. Hist., -1931, No. 59, pp. 3 - 1 2 .

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What is today's natural history? Certainly it is none of the commonly accepted pretenders to the title: not the stagnant, superficial, unexamined mass of rote-memorized names and pseudo-scientific "parables of nature" recited by "nature lovers"; nor the dry-as-dust taxonomy of the worst kind; nor that brand of ecology which has succumbed to the dry rot of formalism, minutiae, and economics; nor can it be equated with any of the specialties of modern biology, or combinations thereof, which from time to time claim to have preëmptied the title. Having a heritage in each and every one of these specialties, natural history cannot be defined as a certain circumscribed area of biological subject matter. Rather it is an aspect of them all, and its essence is to be found as an attitude, a habit of mind, a range of interest. The simple truth is that there is not a single corner of any biological specialty—no matter how refined or abstruse—but that can be shown to have its foundations in some phenomenon experienced as natural history, and to demand for its full appreciation a return to this original perspective. In the hands of a master biologist even the most intensive biological problem begins and ends as natural history. The plea for a full share of natural history in our General Education biology teaching is therefore a plea not so much for more of any particular area of subject matter as for a certain attitude, approach, and setting for whatever subject matter is considered. It is made in the fear that since the most productive, progressive and profound aspects of modern biology are those reaping the harvest of ultramicroscopic, biophysical, biochemical, and mathematical techniques, the sound values of a less technical approach in our teaching may be neglected. Doubtless on occasion the principle should be developed that common sense and appearance are utterly misleading and often the ultimate nature of things cannot be represented in terms of analogies with everyday things. And there are other principles worth our promulgating that can be related to the everyday world only with great originality and perhaps more time and effort than they de-

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serve. But certainly the large bulk of our material, no matter how technical, complicated, detailed, abstruse, or abstract, can be introduced, in large part discussed, and finally given its setting, in terms of familiarly known phenomena, or phenomena easily derived from or related to them. It is characteristic of the naturalhistory attitude that it approaches the biological world with the naked eye, in wholeness and common sense, asking that new knowledge be of intrinsic appeal and value and relate to the old and familiar. It will follow the way through microscope, crucible, and technical jargon as long as it is assured of a return with greater understanding to the light of common day. It is true that this attitude does indirectly affect the choice of subject matter. Many of our General Education biology courses need, I feel, a greater proportion of those areas that are commonly considered to be peculiar to natural history: kinds, parts, habits, distribution, evolution of living things. After all, what are the commonest failings of our science courses for nonscientists? Are they not those of technicality and abstraction from the student's world of experience, an obsession with research problems, a shallow fascination with the latest gadgetry, a shameless pretense of infallible methodology? Are not the students' reactions too frequently those of boredom with what, in relation to their past experience and their anticipation of their postcollege life, they must judge as quite completely irrelevant or hopelessly esoteric? Are these not the very difficulties that the element of natural history is calculated to forestall? Almost by definition, natural history guarantees real relevance in a wide range of familiar phenomena that have spontaneous interest and are of the sort that will have a continuing value in lives remote from laboratories and technical matters. On the grounds of simplicity and directness natural history should recommend itself to all teachers who are genuinely interested in setting forth principles in the clearest, richest, and most meaningful way. A considerable number of the most basic biological generalizations were formulated through

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a direct confronting of simple natural phenomena, and our modern technology has altered them in no fundamental way. The germs of concepts fully comprehensible only after exhaustive analysis, and the seeds of the frustration eventually encountered in facing the ultimate nature of all the fundamental biological processes, can often be found represented adequately for our purposes on a simpler level. Many modern biologic concepts require and deserve an abstract, detailed, and technical approach, but to seek to present them at a needlessly complex level wastes time and energy and involves a greater risk of floundering. The history of science should play a large role in our General Education science courses. A major reason why it is not doing so in the biological sciences is simply that there is an unfortunate neglect of those aspects of biology which until very recent times constituted nearly the totality of the science. If the past is to be made relevant and important then we must value the heritage, not abandon our birthright for the latest fashions. Certainly it is only when we in our present work see, enjoy, and value what the workers of the past have revealed for us that we really appreciate the contribution of our predecessors. Without this there is too much of futility and hypocrisy in fine speeches on the virtue of historical perspective and the role of the history of science in General Education. It is imperative for the full effect of these values of natural history that the student as often and directly as possible meet the phenomena. The educative process has only been begun when the student has read and been lectured to on the biological world. The realization of this, of course, is the basis of the wise decision of biologists almost universally to retain laboratory work in General Education biology. Natural history may not seem to demand this more than any other aspect of the study. If it does not, we will have a sure sign that natural history will have degenerated into a mere perfunctory coverage of another topic and is failing to capitalize on those peculiar virtues that so clearly recommend it in the teaching of biology to nonscientists.

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If the essence of natural history is an attitude, its substance is an experience. The continuing relevance of biological matters to our students depends upon their developing a working knowledge of and a sensitive interest in those universal elements in their postcollege environment that can serve as continual stimuli and food for an intellectually and esthetically satisfying experience. This clearly calls for activity beyond the verbal level and in addition to the use of various excellent visual aids in lecture demonstrations. In short, it depends on the students' encountering the object itself in the laboratory, museum, and field, and developing those time-honored faculties of keenness and accuracy of observation and thought, while at the same time establishing those nascent qualities of real interest, respect, and faith in the intelligibility of the world around and within them.

The Evaluation Problem

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ost teachers have the hope, if not the conviction, that what they do in the classroom has a lasting and beneficial effect on the lives of those they teach. To determine once and for all how far these hopes are realized is obviously impossible. The habitual mode of behavior of the graduate who has been out of college for five, ten, or thirty years is the product of thousands of forgotten experiences, and nobody can know whether the ideas gained from this or that particular course may be among them. One hopes that the successes of graduates who turn up in Who's Who are at least in part attributable to their college training and that influences beyond the ken of the college account for the alumni who end up in jail. But in spite of the questionnaires and other paraphernalia of the professionally curious, one can never be sure. In the last analysis, teaching, like prayer, is an act of faith in that an empirical test of its ultimate effects is unavailable. Even among acts of faith, however, there are degrees of reasonableness. The teacher whose attention is narrowly focused on subject matter, and who never looks up to see how it is with his students, may entertain no doubts whatever about the educational value of what he is doing—even though an embarrassing proportion of the students may sleep through his lectures. This is educational faith of the blindest sort. Less blind is the teacher who worries about whether his material is getting across, and takes some pains to find out whether he is making anything happen in the students' minds. If what he finds accords with

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what he hopes to find, he can have some assurance that when his students leave him, they are at least headed in the right direction. What has come to be called educational evaluation is nothing more or less than the means by which a conscientious teacher can ascertain whether that kind of assurance is justified. If the professional evaluator is tempted to make more extravagant claims, the chances are that enthusiasm for tests and statistics has got the better of his good judgment. The most elaborate methods of evaluation can do little more than indicate whether a particular course or group of courses has been able to bring about some hoped-for change in the mental processes of students. How long the new ideas may last before they are canceled out or altered or reinforced by the cross fires of later experience, no one in his right mind would dare to say. These remarks are not made with the intention of belittling the importance of evaluation. It is, after all, useful to know whether students actually have been headed in the right direction, whether instruction has indeed changed their minds, uprooted some of their prejudices, and widened their understanding. Failing some sort of evaluation, however limited, one cannot properly judge whether the whole expensive educational enterprise is really getting anywhere or whether it is just a convenient device for keeping a million teachers in pocket money. If evaluation is important for education in general, it is especially important for General Education. General Education is something new. The underlying concepts may be old, but they have been recombined in new ways to produce new points of view and new methods of attack. Now, the first question to be asked about any new thing is: What is it? The second is: Does it work? A good many words have been expended in trying to describe what General Education is, but it is obvious that the question has not yet been settled. There is groping and disagreement and controversy. If a little more attention were given to the second question there might be less groping, less disagreement, and less controversy about the first. To find out in

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some objective fashion whether one approach works better than another, or whether either has any effect on students that is not just as readily obtained by traditional methods, is the business of evaluation. It does not seem likely that we shall get rid of our confusions about General Education until we take a hardheaded look at it to see whether it is in fact developing the students' thinking along lines we believe to be important. There are three good reasons why, up to this point, the task of evaluating courses in General Education has been largely neglected. In the first place, the teachers who have been engaged in organizing these courses have been so busy deciding what to teach and how to teach it that they simply have not had the time to set up the procedures needed to determine whether their efforts have been paying off. Secondly, they have often become so deeply committed to certain theories and practices that they have been afraid, subconsciously, to face the possibility that their pet ideas are not so sound as they think them to be. When a man has put in two or three years of hard work preparing and developing a new course, he does not face with equanimity the prospect of finding out that it may be no good. Finally, the professors and the professional evaluators have had extraordinary difficulty trying to understand each other. In those cases where the professor has felt that his classroom tactics were ready for evaluation and has had the courage to meet the test, he has been dismayed to find that the testers appeared to have no adequate conception of what he was trying to do and therefore no acceptable means of determining whether he was doing it. If there is to be any genuine evaluation of courses in General Education, some way around this last difficulty will have to be found. Therefore it will pay to look rather closely at some of the roots of the trouble. For one thing, the professional evaluators have got themselves trapped in a number of preconceptions which cause them to fumble the problem. One of these preconceptions is the notion that one can measure any kind of educational achievement with an objective-type test. If pressed, they

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will admit that for a particular situation no suitable objective testing devices are now available, but in their bones they have the conviction that, with a bit of hard thinking, they can invent a new one that will fit the requirements. The weakness of this point of view—and this is what troubles the professors—is that it rests on too narrow a definition of educational achievement. It is true that objective-test questions are capable of getting at more aspects of mental performance than they are usually given credit for. Too frequently it is thought that all an objective test can tell is how many isolated facts a student remembers. In point of fact, a well-made test can tell considerably more. It can, for example, indicate how accurately a student reasons with given facts, or how well he discriminates between relevant and irrelevant facts, or how nicely he judges the difference between a good piece of work and a poor one. After all is said, however, there still remains a considerable area of academic activity that deeply concerns the professor and that the enthusiast for objective tests seems to have forgotten about. By their very nature such tests are incapable of showing how well a student can write the English language, or how well he can organize his ideas, or how apt he is in the discovery of remote connections between things that is ordinarily called imagination. Another preconception that hampers communication between the tester and the teacher is the idea that courses bearing the same names or having the same stated objectives make the same demands on students from one college to another. On this theory it is reasonable to suggest that a standard test can be used in all colleges offering such courses. The theory is particularly attractive to the representatives of large testing organizations having standard tests to sell. It is, in fact, the only theory by which such organizations can justify their existence as publishers of achievement tests. The heavy concentration of testing experts in these organizations seems to give the theory a certain weight of authority. Nevertheless, its validity is open to question. Perhaps it applies at the level of simple skills. The demands

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of such subjects as arithmetic, spelling, and reading are probably very much the same from one school to another, and although methods of instruction may vary, standard tests can be devised which, it is generally agreed, provide adequate measures of progress in these skills. When, however, one moves from the elementary school to the college, the situation is different. Here we are not so much concerned with simple skills as with the student's reactions to complicated subject matter, and there is strikingly little detailed agreement among the professors on what this subject matter should be—especially when it appears in the frame of a General Education course. At Harvard, for example, there are four different courses in General Education under the rubric "The Physical Sciences", and although they are the same in broad outline and overlap to some extent in the ground covered, they differ markedly in method of approach, in emphasis, and in the specific demands that they make on the mental processes of the students. Multiply this situation by fifty, and it becomes inconceivable that a single standard test in the physical sciences can serve any useful purpose in the evaluation of such courses. There is no well-defined universe of subject matter that one can call the physical sciences; there are only professors of physical science, each of whom has his own ideas of what ought to be taught and what kind of thinking he wants his students to do. Is it any wonder, then, that when these professors look at a standard test they find it includes much material that they do not teach and leaves out much that they do? A third preconception of the test makers is that this difficulty can be overcome by getting a committee of recognized leaders in a given field to agree on the questions to be included in a standard test. This is the procedure that was followed, for instance, in making up the Graduate Record Examination. It is supposed that by this method everything important in the field will be included and everything unimportant will drop out. The fallacy should be obvious: in an unsettled field one cannot define a universe of subject matter by majority vote. As a matter of

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fact, there is some likelihood that if the committee is large enough, and if there are strong disagreements about what should and should not be included, the voting procedure will produce a test that contains only the trivial questions on which all can agree. If, on the other hand, the committee is small and of a single mind about the material that ought to go in, the test is likely to contain questions on which only the committee can agree. These animadversions may not apply to certain traditional fields where the body of subject matter has been well established through long usage, but courses in General Education do not belong to traditional fields. They are usually attempts to cut across several fields, and in consequence their composition is still a matter of debate. If the professional evaluators and the professors cannot see eye to eye, the fault is not wholly with the evaluators. Those who organize the courses and teach them have been remiss in at least one respect: they have usually failed to state their purposes in such a manner as to convey in unmistakable terms what they are actually trying to accomplish. The objectives of General Education have been left on such a high level of generality that they allow any number of specific interpretations in terms of course practices. Large concepts like "critical thinking" or "an appreciation of the physical universe" are scarcely usable blueprints of what a course—or a test—should contain. Up to the present this tendency to avoid the concrete in describing objectives has been all to the good. It has encouraged men to try out their ideas and to build up courses suited to their own interests and talents. It is a reasonable hypothesis that this freedom of approach has yielded more stimulating and attractive courses than would otherwise have been the case. Any program for evaluating them, however, must rest on a fairly complete and concrete formulation of what is being attempted in each particular course. The only person who can work up such a formulation is the teacher himself, and until he does it, the evaluator is certain to be at a loss about where to begin. This situation points up a

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source of confusion for which the teacher and the evaluator are both responsible. It originates in a misunderstanding of what the role of each should be in the evaluative process. Both seem to assume that teaching is the teacher's job and evaluation is the evaluator's job, and that neither should encroach on the domain of the other. This point of view carries the principle of division of labor too far. As a matter of fact, the person who should be most intimately involved in a program of evaluation is the teacher whose course is being evaluated. The professional evaluator, if he is needed at all, should serve only in an advisory capacity to suggest ways in which the teacher can improve his tests and manipulate the results so that justifiable inferences can be drawn from them. If, then, the primary responsibility for evaluating a course is on the teacher, what are some of the things he should keep in mind if he is to do the job properly? In the first place, it is clear that one cannot evaluate anything until one has formed some system of values. In the present case the values are standards of performance by which one can judge whether student A is doing better than student B. Values are largely a personal matter; they depend on the private philosophy of the teacher; and they vary considerably from one teacher to another. In a school or college where the teacher's freedom of action is a closely guarded prerogative, the particular value system to which he adheres is largely his own affair. If, however, he is genuinely concerned with finding out whether his teaching is accomplishing what he wants it to accomplish, he has an obligation to formulate his system of values in a manner that is clear, consistent, and communicable. That is, he must state his teaching objectives in down-to-earth terms. It is helpful to think of the objectives of a course as existing in two dimensions. Along one dimension are the facts and ideas the teacher wants to present; along the other dimension are the things that students are supposed to do with the facts and ideas —remember them, reason with them, solve problems with them,

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apply them to matters of personal experience, and so on. Most teachers, in an effort to be specific about their course objectives, concentrate on the first dimension and neglect the second. They spell out in detail the facts that a course is to cover and pay little or no attention to the question of what the student is to do with facts. This is unfortunate, for if it is important to define what a student should know, it is just as important to define the mental processes that are involved in the knowing. When, for instance, one talks of having a student "understand" a physical law, it is necessary to ask what the student does when he understands. Does recognizing the law in a familiar formulation constitute understanding? Recognizing it in an unfamiliar formulation? Using it to solve a familiar type of problem? An unfamiliar type? Deriving it from definitions and axiomatic principles? Explaining its place in the structure of physical science? Describing its historical genesis? Writing an essay on its technological consequences? On its philosophical implications? . . . Which (if any) of these is in line with the objectives of the course? The requirement that the objectives must be stated in terms of observable student behavior is especially important in science courses aimed at the nonscientist. The presumption is that such students are initially uncomfortable in the presence of scientific ideas. In nine cases out of ten the reason these students are nonscientists is that their previous experiences with science have been frustrating. In fear of failure they seize on the one method of study that has always seemed to work—the memorization verbatim of lecture notes, definitions, laws, formulas, facts, and examples. Unfortunately, they too often find that the method still works, for despite protestations to the contrary, teachers continue to mistake verbalism for thinking. The teacher who is trying to get his students a respectable distance beyond this kind of infantile reaction must have a clear notion of what other reactions he is looking for, and he must devise ways and means for bringing out these reactions in a manner that clearly demonstrates

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whether a student has seen the light or is still floundering in a fog of meaningless words. It is well to remember, however, that evaluating a course is somewhat different from evaluating the students who take it. Final grades constitute an evaluation of the students, but grades in themselves cannot indicate whether the course is producing the results one wants it to produce. It is unlikely but always possible that the student who gets an A might have got the same grade without taking the course. In evaluating the course itself one is interested in whether it has made something happen in the student that would not have happened otherwise. Furthermore, one is usually also interested in whether it has brought about changes in certain nonacademic aspects of the student's life that ordinarily do not enter into a final grade. Has he become more favorably disposed to the doings of scientists? Does he give more attention to popular books and articles on science? In other words, the evaluation of a course requires that the teacher take at least two looks at the student—one at the beginning and another at the end. The hope is, of course, that between times the behavior of the student will have undergone a change in the direction of the objectives that have been set up. There are a number of ways of observing whether the desired changes have taken place. The most obvious way is to give tests. Every teacher makes and gives tests at one time or another, but few put into their tests the amount of thought and imagination needed to produce an instrument that will furnish a well-rounded picture of the student's thinking. Conscientious evaluation requires that as much effort shall be expended in preparing tests as is put into the preparation of teaching materials. In fact, the two tasks should go hand in hand. As the teacher ponders what he is going to teach and how he is going to teach it, he should be simultaneously concerned with the questions: How will the students respond? and, How can their responses be tested? This procedure is likely to make for better teaching as well as better testing.

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Books on the subject of how to make tests are plentiful, but they mostly have well-known drawbacks. There are, however, a few exceptions. The Measurement of Understanding, by W. A. Brownell and a group of collaborators, is one of the best.1 It contains a good general discussion of the problem in language free of unnecessary jargon, and, more important, it presents a wealth of examples of test questions that can serve as models to the teacher who is trying to write his own. This is one of the few books on testing that give any attention to the matter of essay questions; most of the others seem to assume that the only tests worth using are objective tests. It is, however, only common sense that a well-balanced test—that is, one that samples as many as possible of the kinds of things a teacher wants his students to know and do—must usually contain both essay and objective questions. Objective questions are needed because they make it possible to cover a wide range of facts and mental skills in a short time; essay questions are needed because they are the only sure method of determining how well the student can pull together his ideas and demonstrate his capacity for sequential thought and effective expression. Either type when used alone gives only a partial indication of where the student is with respect to the objectives of the course. Many teachers have the mistaken idea that essay questions are easy to formulate, and it is for this reason, no doubt, that so many bad examinations are slapped together in a hurry and accepted as adequate. The haphazard essay question suffers from either or both of two principal faults: it may demand nothing more than a pouring out of facts or it may be so unstructured that it leaves the student completely in the dark as to what the teacher expects him to do. Essay questions of the first sort are better replaced by objective questions. Those of the second sort elicit only by accident the kind of thinking that the teacher is 1 W. A. Brownell, et al., The 45th Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Part I, "The Measurement of Understanding" ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946).

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looking for. The commonest response is usually off the point and turns into a dreary résumé of everything the student has heard or read on the subject, without any regard for the relative importance of the ideas presented or for their interrelations. To overcome this difficulty and get an actual test of the student's ability to handle ideas, one must, in the question itself, restrict the kinds of response that are possible and acceptable, and one must make perfectly clear to the dullest student just what the restrictions are. This sort of thing is difficult to do without telling the student too plainly how to organize his answer or suggesting too much of what it should contain. The limits appropriate in a particular course can be found only by a process of trial and error. When the answers to a given question turn out to be invariably bad, the teacher should bear in mind that it may not be the students, or even the teaching, but the question itself that is at fault. Such a question should not, however, be thrown away; it should be revised on the spot, possibly after talking with the students about it, for another trial at a later date. Only by following a procedure of this kind can an instructor eventually build up a fund of good essay questions that will reveal with some degree of accuracy what he is doing to the minds of his students. It was mentioned above that the evaluation of a course must depend upon a double sampling of each student's performanceone as he enters the course and the other as he leaves it. This boils down to giving the same test twice—a procedure that seems to strike some teachers as strange and possibly absurd. How can a student be expected to do anything on a test before he has studied the subject? Isn't it unjust and pedagogically unsound to ask him to wrestle with questions for which it is a foregone conclusion that he doesn't know the answers? The point of view reflected by such queries as these assumes that every student comes to the course with his mind completely devoid of any of the facts and ideas that the instructor plans to present. In the case of very advanced courses, where the subject matter is highly

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specialized and technical, there may be some warrant for such an assumption, but in a course in General Education there is every reason to believe that at least some of the students will have encountered some of the subject matter before. The college teacher who supposes that all of what he has to offer will be completely novel to his students is likely to be surprised at what they can do with a test given on the first day of the term. The usual three-hour final examination, however, if given during the first week of the course, might be something of an embarrassment, especially if it demanded a firm grasp of minutiae. But we are here talking not of the usual final examination but of a test purposely designed to evaluate the course rather than the students in it. There can be a considerable difference between the two. For one thing, a course-evaluation test can be relatively short. Within limits, the larger the number of students in the course, the shorter the test can become and still yield a reliable indication of the improvement in the performance of the class as a whole. That is, fewer questions of each particular kind are needed for the establishment of a trend. A test is essentially a sample of tasks. To have any assurance of how many of all the possible tasks an individual student is able to handle, one has to try him out on a large sample, but a smaller sample will suffice when one is interested only in the average number of tasks that the members of a group can do. Furthermore, from the ordinary course examination one wants to know how many questions each student can answer, but from an evaluation test one wants to know how many students can answer each question. In view of these considerations the structure of an evaluation test might be something like this: 10 questions on the leading facts of the course ( allowing half a minute for each); 10 questions on the fine points of the course ( allowing half a minute for each); 5 questions that test the student's ability to solve problems ( allowing two minutes for each ) ;

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1 essay question requiring the student to organize his ideas on some important topic covered by the course; 1 essay question that gives the student a chance to show his understanding and appreciation of the fundamental point of view of the course. The first twenty-five questions would be "objective" in the sense of requiring a predetermined "right" answer. Allowing twenty minutes for these, and forty for the two essay questions, one gets a single test package requiring an hour of the student's time. The comparison of the final performance of the class with their initial performance on the objective questions presents no difficulty: one compares the number of students having a given question right at the beginning of the year with the number having the same question right at the end of the year. The increase, if any, is presumptive evidence of the effectiveness of the course with respect to the item in question. Comparing initial with final performance on each of the essay questions, however, is not so easy. The answer to an essay question is rarely all "right" or all "wrong"; in fact, the concepts of right and wrong do not apply. Instead, one judges the essay as a whole to be superior, inferior, or somewhere in between. The problem is to express these judgments in such form that an unbiased comparison between the initial and final essays is possible. One way of doing this is best described by an example. Let us suppose that the students are given in general terms one or two of the classical laws of physics and are told to supply events from personal experience that are explained by these laws. The idea behind the question is to see how much growth has taken place in the habit of looking at ordinary phenomena from the standpoint of physical science. After the initial essays have been written, they are filed away ungraded. Then at the close of the course each student writes a second essay on the same subject. With names and dates concealed, the two sets of essays are shuffled together and the combined set is graded as a single series. Upon uncovering the names and dates on the papers, one

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can determine the number of final papers showing an improvement over the initial papers. If substantially more than half of the class has improved, the inference is that, with respect to the objective represented by this question, the course has produced positive results. The foregoing procedure is scarcely as clean-cut and precise as applying a yardstick. It depends heavily on personal judgments—judgments with respect to the questions that shall go into the test and judgments with respect to the merit of the essays. The fact that subjective judgment is a large element in the process is, however, nothing against it. Indeed, any attempt to minimize the effect of judgment in a process of this kind will by so much minimize the meaning of the results, for that which we call achievement is, in the last analysis, only somebody's judgment of what somebody else does. We fool ourselves, and our students, when we suppose that by resorting to "objective" tests we are obtaining a measure of performance that is objective in the sense of being independent of human judgment. It is healthier to realize that the problem is not to eliminate judgment from the process but to keep the judgments we make relevant to our purposes. If one has administered a test at the two ends of a course and has carried through an analysis similar to that suggested above, one should have a quantity of illuminating information showing where and to what extent the students have gained ground. It is, nevertheless, not always safe to infer that the teaching alone has been responsible for all the improvement that may appear. Some of it, at least, might well have taken place if the students had never been exposed to the course. It is conceivable that they might have picked up their command of new facts from general reading and that their increased power to handle ideas would have come about from normal growth processes or from the training received in other courses. Any inference, therefore, concerning the effectiveness of the course being evaluated remains in doubt until one has repeated the experiment on a similar group

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of students who have not taken the course. To secure such a group is no mean task. One has to find students outside the course who are in all important respects like those inside it. Then one has to convince them that it is worth their while to take the tests, and to take them seriously. The whole project demands a degree of cooperation that is more praiseworthy than it is common, but if a teacher is really concerned to prove to himself and others that his course has the values he claims for it, he can find ways and means of surmounting these difficulties. Some people responsible for courses in General Education may feel that any evaluative technique that puts the emphasis solely on the use of tests inevitably misses many of the most important things that the courses are supposed to accomplish. The kinds of tests contemplated above provide little if any basis for observing changes in attitude; they stress the intellectual development of the student and take no account of his adaptive behavior, his private philosophy, or his feelings. The fact of the matter is that tests, as ordinarily conceived, are incapable of penetrating these areas. One can fuss around with questionnaires, attitude scales, personality inventories, and the like, but the results one gets from them are always open to the charge that they may misrepresent the actual situation because they sample only a superficial aspect of behavior which may or may not be related to the underlying tendencies of the individual. It is no secret that students may fake their responses to a questionnaire and give a picture of themselves that misrepresents what they really are. This sort of faking is not necessarily dishonest; it may indeed be the result of an unconscious wish to please the professor. Having sat through lectures and section meetings during an entire academic year and having got some notion of the values that the instructor has been struggling to get across, the student with any decent human feelings may, possibly without even knowing it, make an effort to give the appearance that he agrees even when in his heart he does not. Most of these nonintellectual characteristics can be better

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observed by indirect methods. They exhibit themselves best in the casual comments students make when they are off guard and in other forms of expressive behavior that arise at unexpected times and places. How extensively do students participate in class discussions? What kinds of questions do they raise? How often do they argue about the subject matter of the course in bull sessions outside the classroom? How many go beyond the required reading of the course and dig into books and periodicals that have been merely recommended as "interesting"? Although reliable answers to questions of this sort are hard to get, it is just such information that must be obtained if one is to have an accurate idea of what is taking place in the students' minds. It is too easy to be impressed by the few instances that come accidentally to one's attention. The evidence of these instances is often gratifying but it scarcely furnishes a sound basis for assuming that all students are reacting the same way. Conversely, the fact that no such instances appear does not necessarily mean that they would not appear if students did not so constantly dread being thought of as apple polishers. In spite of the obvious difficulties, systematic attack can yield dependable evidence on the amount and kind of the more subtle results produced by a course. The chief requirement is that a determined effort shall be made to observe each student's day-to-day behavior both in the classroom and outside. Section meetings, individual conferences, informal conversations at meal time—all of these furnish opportunities for getting acquainted with students' reactions in ways that are rarely exploited as fully as they might be. It is true that there is always the barrier of age and authority between the professor and the student, but if this barrier cannot be surmounted, it can often be got around in several ways. One way that has proved somewhat successful is to let the students elect a spokesman from among themselves to serve as an intermediary. However the observations are made, it is important that there be some method of keeping a regular record of them. In the

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teacher's grade book there ought to be a generous amount of space beside each student's name for putting down an account of actual happenings as they occur. If adequate records of this sort are properly kept, a review of them at the end of the year should reveal rather strikingly how the attitudes of the class as a whole have been affected by the work of the course. Combined with evidence from the tests, the information so gained should give the instructor not only a fairly thorough picture of what the course has accomplished but also some tangible notions of where he may have missed the boat. The evaluation of a course in General Education should have a twofold purpose: to find out whether the course is accomplishing what it set out to accomplish and to point to the deficiencies that need repair the next time around. This paper has attempted to show that this purpose can be achieved by the ordinary teacher without any special training in what is sometimes grandiosely called the "techniques of evaluation." Anyone wise enough and bold enough to undertake the teaching of a course in General Education probably has the qualifications needed to evaluate it. The trouble is that most professors with the will to tackle the problem are so harried with other responsibilities that they cannot find the time to do much of anything about it. Indeed, if one were to embark on a really comprehensive program of evaluation, he would scarcely find enough time left for teaching. The obvious way around this impasse is not to attempt to do everything at once, but to keep pecking away at the problem, year in and year out, according to some systematic scheme. If the scheme is well conceived, the accumulated information that would become available after a few years should not only constitute a solid basis for making the course an increasingly efficient instrument for moving students toward the objectives, it should also be a defense against the attacks on General Education that will inevitably come. Time and again, fundamental changes in the educational process have come about simply because of impatience with the traditional ways of doing things.

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Rarely have these changes been justified by concrete evidence that the new way made any observable difference in the behavior of students. One hopes that when General Education itself becomes hoary with tradition, it will stand on more solid ground than mere theory and speculation can supply.

WHAT THE INSTRUCTOR CAN DO ABOUT EVALUATION: TECHNIQUES AND EXAMPLES Fletcher G. Watson

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very teacher must answer to himself—and through his instruction, to his students—three basic questions. What is he trying to do to and for the students? What seem to be the most effective methods to employ in reaching these goals? To what extent has the instruction been successful? Serious consideration of the first question establishes the goals to be approached and must precede consideration of the other questions. Methods of instruction are many and varied, but often one technique will prove most effective for creating certain ideas with certain types of students. Intelligent and flexible choice of techniques in terms of the particular students and ideas is essential. An answer to the third question provides some evaluation of the effectiveness of the techniques used in the course—a question that rests heavily on the conscience of all serious teachers. Evaluation is the effort to estimate as best we can how well we have achieved what we set out to accomplish. This involves much more than tests and a great deal more than giving grades. Grades indicate our estimate of the relative achievements of the several students. But even if there were to be no grades required, we would be interested in attempting to evaluate our courses. This is a much bigger matter, for we are appraising not only the students, but also ourselves—our plan of operation and its execution. Such evaluation, made as specific as possible, shows us our shortcomings and allows us to make alterations (we hope, im-

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provements) for the next presentation. As any effects possibly attributable to a course are the algebraic sum of the observable effects produced in the individual students, we must study student behavior. Let us be realistic. We cannot hope or pretend to measure or appraise every interesting characteristic of the student any more than we can hope to know all about any object or process. Like the physician, we should look for certain symptoms and from these make inferences about currently intangible elements affecting the individual. While such an analogy between medicine and education may seem extravagant today, medicine during the past century has made enormous advances in associating symptoms with specific diseases, and this record should encourage us to attempt similar associations in education. What symptoms we look for is, however, a significant matter, for it reveals what we actually consider important. Especially in General Education courses we are concerned about effecting in the student changes that will be evident during his further life. Some have argued that because during college life we cannot appraise long-term effects we should not be concerned with them. Certainly we cannot wait for the years to pass, and even if we could we would have great difficulty in separating out the effects of the total collegiate experience, let alone the effects of a single course, from the vast number of other determining factors that enter a person's life during a decade or more. But we cannot accept this as discouraging or as excusing us from any efforts at evaluation. Following our medical analogy, we recognize that there may be effects that will not become apparent for long times, yet most influences do produce some observable reactions within a short time. The relation between immediate and long-term effects must be studied, but meanwhile the extent to which the immediate effects are observable is directly related to the variety and subtlety of the tools we use. It seems reasonable that most, if not all, of the major goals of instruction should make some observable alteration in the stu-

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dent's immediate behavior. A syndrome of these effects should be observable by the end of the course. Note that we are interested in observable changes. This means that we must know the behavior of the students not only at the end of the course, but also at the beginning. To the question: What sort of things are we to evaluate? the obvious answer is: Student achievement of the objectives. Easily said, but not so easily done. The objectives of a course are often only implicit. I believe that the effort by the instructor to make his objectives explicit is highly profitable. Not only will such an effort increase his perception into the possibilities of the course, but it will also suggest other blocks of subject matter and instructional techniques that might be more effective. Furthermore, explicit statements can be discussed with other instructors; this is likely to be a profitable experience. Explicit statements of objectives will often suggest situations in which student growth can be appraised. Some pioneering efforts to isolate and clarify various types of objectives have been made.1'2,3,4 But much remains to be done, for most of the more subtle objectives, involving the attitudes of students, are still beyond the existing classifications and investigations. This will not remain the situation, for student attitudes are being probed with several promising types of instruments that are under development. In this area every teacher can do useful research. Another aspect of evaluation follows from the conclusion that we wish to consider observable changes in the reactions of the students. This leads immediately to the formulation of situations 1 W . A. Brownell, et al., The 45th Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I, "The Measurement of Understanding" ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946). 2 E. R. Smith and R. W. Tyler, Appraising and Recording Student Progress (New York: Harper, 1942); this is vol. Ill of Adventure in American Education, the report of the Eight Year Study. 8 Leo Nedelsky, "Formulation of Objectives of Teaching in the Physical Sciences," Am. J. Physics 17, 345 (1949). 4 Paul Burke, "Testing for Critical Thinking in Physics," Am. ]. Physics 17, 527 (1949).

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in which we can make evaluations. We may wish a student, after reading a given set of material, to write a paper making certain points about the argument and exhibiting certain attitudes. We may wish him to read a passage and then write a critical commentary illustrating his points by reference to what he considers pertinent examples drawn from the course material. Such a procedure appears to short-cut the initial formulation of explicit objectives and deal directly in observable reactions which in turn define the objectives. Both methods of determining objectives and evaluation procedures are in use. Neither procedure stands alone; each influences the other through feedback. Initial objectives cannot be defined without consideration of how, when, and where they may appear in the life of the student. Similarly, initial formulation of problems to which certain reactions are desired cannot be done in vacuo, but must in turn be related to certain socially desirable behaviors. Since the evaluation and the objectives of a course must be consistent, they will over a period of time interact to the clarification of both in much the way that experiments and hypotheses interact in a scientific study. Some instructors will proceed most rapidly starting with one aspect of the problem; some will find the other more congenial; all will eventually consider the same problems. The matter of consistency between objectives and evaluation situations merits further comment, from the student's point of view. Most of us are guilty of espousing and expounding highsounding objectives but of forgetting them when reading papers or formulating test questions. The grades on these are of primary importance to the student, especially to the student who has little or no professional interest in the area and is taking the course only because it is required. His major concern is to get as good a grade as possible. If that grade is based primarily upon his memory of isolated, picayune bits of factual information, then to him temporary recollection of such information is the primary objective of the course. If the instructor is concerned with atti-

EVALUATION: TECHNIQUES AND EXAMPLES 209 tudes and with broad understandings—for example, that philosophical premises and types of scientific theories are closely associated, that science is among other things a form of social activity, that many difficulties are inherent in the creation of scientific concepts from meager and often apparently contradictory evidence—then he must provide opportunities for the attitude and broad understandings to be expressed. Otherwise, we become hypocrites with our actions belying our words. Evaluation, like creative scientific work, is an art. Many aspects of student behavior cannot be measured, and some about which we are concerned are still difficult even to express in words. Judgment by a responsible person is involved, but this is true even when a decision is made to include a given item in an examination. We must not be afraid to make these judgmentsafter all, it is one of the things for which teachers are paid—but we should constantly attempt to increase the number and variety of situations in which we can make judgments and to improve the criteria we use. There is no need to elaborate upon how revealing may be a student's question after class, or a comment during a discussion. Unfortunately, we usually rely upon our recollection of these incidents rather than upon systematic notes, although every such contact aids in evaluating not only the growth of the individual students, but through them the total effect of the course. More control can be introduced into these judgments when we consider papers or reports and examinations. Many experienced instructors find papers on provocative topics to be one of the most effective means of bringing out the attitudes of students. But at least two conditions must be present. First, the topic must be one on which the expression of varied attitudes is almost unavoidable. Second, the papers must be read by someone sensitive to the problems raised by the topic and to the attitudes that may be revealed in the papers. Rarely will a busy graduatestudent grader, earning a little extra money, come in this category. What can we learn through examinations? They are the stand-

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ard and often much overworked medium through which we attempt some evaluation of our students and through them of our courses. Many teachers are unaware of the degrees of subtle interpretation that can be evoked by an examination question. This is not our fault, but is surely our misfortune. Over the past few decades many ingenious types of questions have been developed and studied in detail. Two in common use are the essay question and the objective question. Each has its distinct value and both may well be used. Yet there are many discussions, often generating more heat than light, of the value of one to the exclusion of the other. Essay questions require the student to create his answer, drawing from his fund of information and thereby revealing his understandings and attitudes. This probably is desired by all teachers. Yet the variabilities in scoring essay questions, even by groups of readers who have agreed upon certain general standards, are well known. This then raises basic questions about the use of scores on such questions as indicators of achievement by the student. As suggested above, longer papers, in themselves essays, may provide more reliable evidence. Objective questions permit the student to respond only within set alternatives. But because such questions require only a decision on the part of the student rather than lengthy writing, more numerous and diverse samples of his reactions may be obtained within a given time. This provides greater statistical stability in the interpretation of student growth, whether for purposes of individual grading or over-all course evaluation. Much of the castigation of objective questions appears to be based upon knowledge of only the most rudimentary forms of such questions, in particular the true-false and the simplest multiple-choice questions. Several of the sources cited contain illustrations of more complex questions. Attention should be given especially to the form described by Raths 5 in which selection of one of several alternative conclusions must be justified by selection from an extensive list of possibly pertinent state8

L. E. Raths, Educational Research Bull, Ohio State Univ. 17, 85 ( 1938).

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ments. These statements may be planned to include specific types of errors, or "booby traps," which reveal how the student selects and uses information. One of Raths' examples, intended for a high-school class, follows; comments enclosed in brackets indicate how scoring proceeds. Problem: What would happen to the weight of a piece of meat if it were placed uncovered in an electric refrigerator? Directions: Choose the conclusion which you believe is most consistent with the facts given and most reasonable in the light of your knowledge. Conclusions: A. It will gain weight. B. It will lose weight. C. It will remain at the same weight. Directions: From the following list, choose the reasons you would use to explain or support your conclusion. Reasons: 1. Water vapor is given off by the meat at any temperature. [Correct reason] 2. The temperature in the electric refrigerator is lower than room temperature. [Irrelevant] 3. It is foolish to believe that food, when placed in a refrigerator which is almost airtight, would lose weight. [Ridicule] 4. Just as a block of ice weighs less than an identical volume of water, so will meat weigh less after it is placed uncovered in an electric refrigerator. [False analogy] 5. The expansion coil is the coldest part of an electric refrigerator. [Correct reason] 6. Manufacturers of electric refrigerators claim that food when properly stored in their refrigerators will neither lose nor gain weight. [Poor authority] 7. The increased weight is caused by evaporation. [False] 8. Water vapor tends to condense on the coldest part of the refrigerator. [Correct reason] On a battery of similar items the analysis of the conclusions chosen and the reasons selected in support of these conclusions

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reveals much about the characteristics of the students. For illustration the scores of only three students are selected for presentation here; all three had "perfect records" on the conclusions, but differed greatly in their choice of reasons. Figures are in percentages of possible responses. Student

J Conclusions Correct reasons Technically false Irrelevant False analogy Assumes conclusion Poor authority Ridicule Inconsistency

100 80 16 0 30 30 0 13 8

M 100 46 8 22 40 90 50 0 0

E 100 46 4 0 10 10 0 0 0

Objective questions provide definite responses to definite questions. But useful tests are not made overnight; they must be prepared thoughtfully and revised on the basis of careful analysis. Far too many teachers, who may spend days or weeks calibrating a scientific instrument in their research laboratory, fail to carry out even the simplest analysis of their tests. The study of a single test item, a block of items, or a whole test requires comparison with some other set of information. This may be, for example, the score on the total test or the final grade given students. Essentially, the teacher must assert the validity of the standard of comparison. Once the reference system is chosen, straightforward techniques will show how well a particular item correlates with the over-all criterion. While more precise techniques are available, a simple and useful method will illustrate the idea.® After a test has been given, select the papers of students ranking in the upper and lower quarters of the class according to the accepted over-all criterion (in the examples to follow this was the total score on a number of multiple-choice items). For each of these two groups determine the number of β W. W. Turnbull, J. Educational Psych. 37, 129 (1946).

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times each of the choices was selected and also the number of times no choice was made. The difference, in the number of choices of the right answer, between the upper and lower groups will indicate the extent to which this particular item has aided in separating the two groups. Occasionally, the upper group will have fewer right answers than the lower group. Such a question is worse than useless; it should be rewritten or discarded. The numbers of choices of the various incorrect responses indicate where confusions lie. If an incorrect response is rarely chosen by any student, it should be replaced. This procedure may be illustrated by two examples drawn from a recent final examination in a Harvard General Education course, Natural Sciences 4. Following each item are, for the lower and upper quarters of the class, the numbers of responses to the four alternative answers in order. The numbers of the correct responses are in boldface type; the numbers of students not answering are in italics. (a) It is a Massachusetts State requirement that an automobile be capable of being stopped within a distance of 25 feet when moving with a velocity of 20 miles per hour (about 30 feet per second). Using Galileo's equations, one can show that the required average acceleration is about: 1) 18 ft/sec 2 , 2) 9.0 ft/sec 2 , 3) 4.5 ft/sec 2 , 4) 1.2 ft/sec 2 . Analysis: Answers: Lower: 16, 2, 5, 3, 11; Upper: 29, 0, 6, 1, 2. Remarks: A satisfactory question requiring knowledge and application of Galileo's equations relating distance, velocity, and acceleration. (b) By bombarding aluminum foil with alpha particles from polonium, the Joliots found that each aluminum nucleus (I3A127) captured an alpha particle, and then expelled a single particle and became a phosphorus nucleus ( 10P30). The particle expelled was a: 1) positron (positive electron), 2) proton, 3) deuteron (nucleus of heavy hydrogen), 4) neutron. Analysis: Answers: Lower: 9, 3, 7, 8, 10; Upper: 7, 4, 0, 26, 1. Remarks: A satisfactory question of moderate difficulty. An index of difficulty can be obtained from the percentage of the combined upper and lower groups who chose the correct answer. An average question has this index in the neighborhood of 50 percent.

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The scores on essay questions can be studied similarly using correlations. With testing instruments calibrated in this way a teacher can follow for each major objective, mental process, or attitude the growth of the class as a whole. Similarly, the growth of special subgroups may be followed, but with somewhat lower statistical reliability. One additional means of evaluating a course is through the use of a questionnaire. The particular questionnaire used here as an illustration was quite lengthy and only a few of the conclusions of general interest are summarized. Near the end of the 1948-49 presentation of President Conant's General Education course, Natural Sciences 4, Dr. C. L. Clark and Dr. E. P. Gross prepared and distributed to the students a questionnaire designed to obtain their reaction on particular items of interest to the staff. Replies were anonymous; half of the class responded even though the questionnaire took over an hour to fill out. The following discussion of results from this questionnaire is largely based on the analysis and graphs prepared by Doctor Clark for circulation to the staff of the course. These students, most of whom were freshmen and none of whom were planning to concentrate in science, were interested in and stimulated by the historical and philosophical aspects of the course. It is not surprising that they suggested more consideration of the interaction of science with society, and of the philosophical implications of science. Apparently this course, in which the historical background and social impact of science received considerable attention, had whetted their interest. The course in question is one using the case approach, as discussed by Professor Nash elsewhere in this volume. While the emphasis in the presentation of the cases is not on technical information for its own sake, it is clear that the students can hardly achieve the understanding hoped for if they do not have considerable mastery of the facts and technical concepts involved. A major question for this type of course is therefore: To what

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extent does the difficulty of mastering the technical aspects of the cases interfere with the achievement of the aims of the course? The terminal questionnaire included a question worded substantially thus, a statement of the aims of the course being available for reference.

For each of the eight cases indicated along the horizontal axis in the accompanying figure, the student could check one of the answers "Severely," "Somewhat," "Slightly." The sixty-odd replies obtained in this way were then tabulated separately according to the particular courses the students had offered as prerequisites: the figure shows curves for each of the four groups "Physics," "Chemistry," "Both," and "Neither"; the numbers in the key indicate how many students there were in each group. For each group and each case the number of those answering "Slightly" was subtracted from the number of those answering "Severely," and this difference was then divided by one-tenth of the total number of answers from that group for that case. The statistic

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thus computed was termed an "Index of Difficulty" as indicated along the vertical axis in the figure. As was to be expected, the curve for a particular group rises in the general area of subject matter ( as indicated just above the case designations) for which that group did not have special preparation in prior course work. What was instructive to the staff of the course, though, was the clear indication that certain cases had been relatively easy, others more difficult. Naturally, the staff members had suspicions about some such state of affairs, but this graph could still serve a useful purpose in giving reasonably impressive verification of hunches, in indicating some shadings that were otherwise not obvious, and in resolving the doubts that inevitably beset purely subjective evaluations. In consequence, appropriate modifications were made in the presentation during the following year; although similar curves are not available for comparison, it was evident that the subsequent presentations were more successful with respect to the point here analyzed. The curves in this figure are instructive in another way. One may perhaps feel legitimate doubt as to the exact congruence of staff interpretation and student interpretation of the question itself and of the list of course aims on which it was based, although such doubts can be alleviated by consideration of the questionnaire as a whole and in its context in the closing days of the course. But note how closely the "Both" and "Neither" curves follow the other two in accordance with what one would expect; the implication is clear that the entire procedure possesses surprising statistical validity. This strongly suggests that measurement of such relatively intangible things as are here involved may not be quite as hopeless as is often believed. These examples illustrate some of the procedures useful in evaluating the effects of a course. In time, some standardized tests may become available. But since each teacher will have somewhat different objectives and emphasis, depending upon the policy of the particular school, the nature of the particular com-

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munity served, and the characteristics of the particular students, it appears that any standardized tests can be only a partial help. Determining how much his course has modified the behavior of the students will always remain the teacher's responsibility. This brings us to a final point. How is it that we take on the severe responsibilities of being teachers and of appraising complex reactions in fellow humans* in colleges, and often in the secondary schools, on the basis of training supposedly fitting us to do research? In other papers in this volume concern is expressed over the need to learn something of the history and philosophy of science. But is this not, in all honesty, only an aspect of that fundamental concern we all have about being effective teachers, whether of General Education courses, or of any other sort? There appears to be a dangerous inconsistency between our collegiate preparation of science majors and graduate students, and the responsibilities so many of them assume when they begin to earn their living as teachers.7 Certainly we should think hard about these responsibilities and our present inadequacies in the light of the preparation that future teachers might have. Perhaps the suggestions of Howard Mumford Jones in Education and World Tragedy8 will stimulate further pondering of these really basic problems. ADDITIONAL

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. H. E . Hawke, E . F. Lindquist, and C. R. Mann, The Construction and Use of Achievement Examinations (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1936). 2. J. P. Guilford, Psychometric Methods (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936). 3. R. M. Gravers, How to Make Achievement Tests (New York: Odyssey Press, 1950). 4. The 34th Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, "Educational Diagnosis" (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935). 5. Science Talent Search Examinations (Washington: Science Service). 6. Ο. K. Büros, ed., Mental Measurements Yearbooks (Highland Park, N. J.: Rutgers University School of Education). T F . J. Kelley, "Toward Better College Teaching," Bull. No. 13, U. S. Office of Education ( 1 9 5 0 ) . 8H. M. Jones, Education and World Tragedy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1 9 4 6 ) .