ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

This subject finds no place upon the program.  No elaborate argument should be required to convince the authorities in charge of the school system of a modern city like Cleveland that in this ultra-scientific age the children who do not go beyond the elementary school—­and they constitute a majority—­need to possess a working knowledge of the rudiments of science if they are to make their lives effective.

The future citizens of Cleveland need to know something about electricity, heat, expansion and contraction of gases and solids, the mechanics of machines, distillation, common chemical reactions and a host of other things about science that are bound to come up in the day’s work in their various activities.

Considered from the practical standpoint of actual human needs, the present almost complete neglect of elementary science is indefensible.  The minute amount of such teaching now introduced in the language lessons for composition purposes is so small as to be almost negligible.  The topics are not chosen for their bearing upon human needs.  There is no laboratory work.

Naturally much of the elementary science to be taught should be introduced in connection with practical situations in kitchen, school garden, shop, sanitation, etc.  Certainly the applied science should be as full as possible.  But preliminary to this there ought to be systematic presentation of the elements of various sciences in rapid ways for overview and perspective.

To try to teach the elements only “incidentally” as they are applied is to fail to see them in their relations, and therefore to fail in understanding them.  Intensive studies by way of filling in the details may well be in part incidental.  But systematic superficial introductory work is needed by way of giving pupils their bearings in the various fields of science.  The term “superficial” is used advisedly.  There is an introductory stage in the teaching of every such subject when the work should be superficial and extensive.  This stage paves the way for depth and intensity, which must be reached before education is accomplished.

HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE

Having no elementary science in the grades, one naturally expects to find in the high school a good introductory course in general science, similar in organization to that suggested for the elementary stage.  But nowhere is there anything that even remotely suggests such a course.  Students who take the classical course get their first glimpse of modern science in the third or fourth high school year, when they have an opportunity to elect a course in physics or chemistry of the usual traditional stamp.  No opportunity is given them for so much as a glimpse of the world’s biological background.  Those who take the scientific or English course have access to physical geography