Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - New Chemistry Building [PAGE 15]

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OVERLAPPING

COURSES

Take, for example, the treatment of the freshman who, on entering a college or university, offers chemistry for admission. In the vast majority of cases he is placed in the same class with those who have never studied the subject before. All agree that the result is unsatisfactory, but many attribute this result to the wrong cause. They say that the chemistry of the High School is valueless, and that their pupils would be better off without it. The actual fact is that, to such pupils, the introductory parts of the course seem trivial and boresome. They become indifferent. Later, when matter suited to more mature minds comes up, they do not observe the change. Soon they fall'behind the beginners, and finally they barely pass in.the course, if they pass at all. The result is not the fault of the student or of the High School, however—it is an inevitable result of ignoring the most familiar features of human psychology. Administer the admission requirement with reasonable strictness, place those credited with chemistry in • a class or section by themselves, make them feel from the start that they are getting something that is new to them, and they will respond accordingly. Of course, elementary matters cannot be omitted. No two members of the class come from the same school, their training is very diverse, and there is hardly one fact, no matter how simple, which is known to every one. The elements must be reviewed at the same time that new matters are introduced. But a pace much more rapid than that of the beginners can be maintained. In Chicago, my experience showed that this class secured in two quarters a much better knowledge of chemistry than a class of beginners could obtain, under the same conditions, in three quarters. If the school course is valueless, why give admission credit for it? If it represents a real advance into the science, as experience shows that it does, why ignore it? Why not accept it, and start at the higher level? Overlapping of courses is all too common in chemical training, and it often begins by duplicating all the work of the High School, and not taking it for granted and proceeding beyond it. Overlapping affects many of the later courses in every university. The instructor in qualitative analysis, instead of ascertaining exactly what is taught in the inorganic course preceding it, and confining him(X2)