THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN USEHARRY C. LASSEN

Carl Schurz High School, Chicago, Illinois

A beauty operator was trying to sell a customer an oil permanent.It would be much better, she thought. Oil is good for the hair. Givesit life.

^Well, I don’t know/ said the customer. (! should think it would bethe worst thing to use with the waving fluid. I don7! understandchemistry, but I just thought they would go against each other, sortof. Wouldn’t oil counteract the fluid?’

^Well, I don’t know/ replied the operator.fMaybe it would.’ Then,suddenly brightening, f! never thought about permanents that way,being chemical, that is. I had chemistry in school back home and Ialways got the highest mark they gave. I liked it, but I’ve neverconnected it with anything outside of school.’’No/ agreed the customer, (! don’t really, either. It’s pretty hard

to see any connection.5^No/ said the operator, (! guess there just isn’t very much connec-

tion.’That seemed to exhaust the subject. While the ladies let their con-

versation run toward more promising areas, let us return to theirtopic.

Science has dug itself in as a significant part of everyone’s educa-tion. Offerings are scheduled from kindergarten through the juniorcollege. Rare indeed is the high school graduate who has had only athousand lessons in science. This is as it should be in an age of hydro-gen bombs, anti-histamine, cyclotrons and big telescopes, the electronmicroscope and the diesel locomotive, and all the innumerable mani-festations of science and technology. True enough, the graduate hastaken science courses, but for the population as a whole the outcomesare somewhat questionable. Like the lady in the beauty parlor, manyfeel incompetent to apply scientific thinking to everyday situations.

Science, like football, is well taught. We produce high grade Ph.D.’swith the generous even flow of an automobile assembly line. Thecream of the stream flows into governmental projects and industry;the rest of it flows into the universities to produce more Ph.D.’s. Ina more naive age we taught Greek to people who would teach Greekto people who would teach Greek, etc. Today we deplore such steril-ity.

So eager are we to produce Ph.D.’s, so efficient is the assembly line,that a day must come when industry and government cannot absorbso large a part of the widening stream. Then more and more scientistswill become available to colleges and high schools. What will be the

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effect on the product of the schools? Prediction is notoriously danger-ous, but perhaps it would be interesting to conjecture.Today our schools offer instruction in the sciences through teachers

who are not principally scientists but who are more or less broadlyeducated and who have some grasp of educational principles. Theseteachers, in general, use text books written by experts who are scien-tists first and educators only incidentally. Courses of study whichwould have been commendable in 1900 are now offered in all serious-ness as a means for adjusting the pupil to our twentieth centurycivilization. The struggle to provide the pupil with a functional ac-quaintance with science and the scientific method is almost too diffi-cult. We teach facts and principles, theories and laws, moving theseobjects from book to mind like so many pieces of freight to be placedaboard ship before an appointed hour. As a result the typical Ameri-can high school graduate emerges with some vocabulary from severalsciences but very little understanding. He has temporary possessionof some facts but only a sketchy comprehension of the physical andbiological parts of his environment. We teach technical sciences, notuse of the scientific method.Would more Ph.D/s in the schools tend to further technicalize our

high school subjects? We are already teaching children the valence ofthe chromate radical, knowing very well that hardly one person infifty will ever meet a life situation requiring such knowledge. Onecollege teacher told his freshman class that they were inadequatelyprepared,�they didn^t know the radii of the 96 atoms! The presentgeneration of high school teachers haven^t started teaching such mat-ters but we are heading in that direction. The more time we spend inbuilding up ware-house stocks of facts, the less remains for providingexperiences in using the scientific method.

Providing the facts of science are surely justifiable, even necessary,but too often they usurp the place of the more desirable activity. Welabor to establish the idea that a solute depresses the freezing pointof a solution, and that seems a practical thing to teach. Yet many aperson who never heard of a solute adds alcohol or Prestone to hisradiator fluid. There are valid reasons for continuing to teach thisparticular idea but we need to be more interested in the alteration ofthe pupils’ thinking and behavior than in his ability to regurgitate thewords of the principle itself.The scientific method has altered our world. It seems almost certain

that without it we would still be living under sixteenth century condi-tions. Everyone agrees that no more powerful instrument for learningthe laws of nature can be hoped for. Strangely enough, however, themen who use this great instrument so wondrously well for adding to

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our health, comfort, and convenience are hardly more skilful thanothers in solving the problems of daily life.Some of the Atomic Scientists have banded together to awaken the

public to possible consequences of their "work. Only the atom bombwas strong enough to cause such a reversal of custom. Normally theresearch scientist loves laws more than he loves humanity. For himto observe social consequences of his researches seems like treason tohis class. He applies his powerful method to the solution of problemsin his particular field but alas, rarely extends its use beyond that.He trains his students rigorously and they in turn rigorously trainothers, but use of the tool is rigidly confined to laboratory problems,not life problems. If the high school student is to benefit by usingscientific method in the solution of his own problems he must betrained by people who see the worth of the scientific method in lifeas well as in the laboratory; people with general education and athorough grounding in the philosophy of education, as well as trainingin the scientific specialty of his choice.

If we consider secondary education as embracing high school andjunior college a curious anomaly appears. This period is devoted togeneral education. In his first year the high school student studiesgeneral science. Here he meets science for the citizen, learns a fewnames of great scientists, and gets his first taste of scientific method.In his second, third, and fourth years he may study, if he wishes, thespecialists’ sciences, biology, physics, and chemistry. Then as hepasses into junior college the philosophy changes: now he must pickup where he left off three years ago and continue with a more sub-stantial general science under the name of The Survey Courses.These courses form one of the bright spots in the modern curricu-

lum, presenting opportunity for thrilling exploration of our expand-ing universe. But why did the student have to dismount, stumbleamong the futilities of the 1900 curriculum, only to remount at theage of eighteen? Surely his thinking has undergone no such curiousrevulsions! Why has he not been offered a four-year continuous, self-consistent course in science, all of it enriching his mind and characterand all contributing to steady development of his ability to thinkscientifically?With adequate training in science through the grades and high

school the student would be ready to study such specialized sciencesas he may need for his vocation, or in the absence of such need hewould drop science. He could consider himself reasonably well in-formed, could read intelligently of the progress of science in his news-paper, and above all he would be better able to think and behaverationally.

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Before this happy day can arrive we must have a generation ofteachers who believe in and live by the scientific method and can de-velop students who will use the scientific method in solution of lifeproblems. Teacher training institutions should find ways to trainscience teachers whose objective will be to prepare students for lifeas well as for laboratory.Perhaps the reason this has not been done is that the specialists

who teach science at higher levels are scientists by inclination andtraining, teachers secondarily. The scientist earns his title of scientistby long years of costly study in a field of high-powered competition.He becomes a scientist by effort, but the title ’teacher’ he casually be-stows upon himself.

His own teachers have focussed their attention on transmission ofknowledge; that is, on the production of ever more intensely spe-cialized specialists. Eminently successful in achieving their objective,they rarely if ever question the validity of that objective. When theeducational philosopher timorously asks, ^Vhat is the purpose of thisactivity?’ the specialist is stung to wrath. Since everyone grants thathe has vast knowledge and grand achievements, why is he not im-mune from intrusion of outsiders? Competent in his field, is he notcompetent to teach?Thus arises ill feeling, generally recognized but rarely mentioned

in print. The wall between subject matter experts and administratorswho seek to provide general education grows ever higher. What aHerculean task to tear it down!The educational expert has two important contributions to make:

economy through clarification of objectives and economy throughmethods of teaching. Even the extreme specialist whose modest am-bition is merely to transmit vocational information can profit byboth. But the genuine teacher, whose job is education, the shaping ofmen, draws his main support from educational theory. He is halfscientist, half humanist: that is to say, he is an educational theorist.He is equipped to teach by light of the aphorism uttered by Hippocra-tes almost twenty-five centuries ago: (! approve of reasoning if ittakes its point of departure from observed fact and methodicallydraws its conclusions from the phenomena.J

A TIMELY SUGGESTIONHave you paid your dues for this year? If not, send your check now to Ray C.

Soliday, P. 0. Box 408, Oak Park, Illinois and avoid waiting in line at the Con-vention.