54.4 T H E JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY Vol. 14, No. 6

Industry” point out (page 227) that the cost of materials to the fertilizer companies is from 61 to 68 per cent of net sales. And again this same report (on page 234) states “Nearly every Agri- cultural Experiment Station in the United States, as well as the United States Department of Agriculture, advocates the purchase and home mixing of fertilizer materials.” Recently, the Con- necticut Agricultural College, referring to Connecticut, made the assertion that “the possible saving by home mixing to-day would

amount to somewhat more than $1,000,000.” Many states could effect a larger saving than Connecticut.

This home mixing is increasing from year to year, and the farmer must realize that his chance of making fair purchases of potash is much greater from a number of competirtg American potash producers, than it is from the “Potash Monopoly,” whose methods have always encouraged the larger users by quantity discounts.

Can the College Do Anything for Industry?’ By Edward Ellery

UNION COLLEGE, SCHF~NECTADY, N. Y.

HE business of industry is profits. There is nothing The business of the hospital is cures. T The buinsess of the school is enlightenment. The

business of the church is spirituality. The business of the home is happiness. Each of the great organizations in human life has its particular business. If it fails to secure its ends, it has no reason for existence. So when one states that the busi- ness of industry is profits, he is only emphasizing what indus- try will try to accomplish.

Industry has been of vast help to all the other organizations in human life, especially by the contribution of large sums of money for their maintenance. The colleges have in particular been the beneficiaries of this largess. Such contributions are made from profits. Every college officer recognizes what these gifts have made possible in the way of advancement of knowledge and increase of enlightenment, and he asks himself-what can the college do, more than it has done, in return? What con- tribution can it make to industry? What more can it do to promote cooperation?

Among other things, the college, always remembering that the business of industry is profits, can reduce the period of un- productiveness of the graduates when they enter industry. Time is a factor in profils. It takes time for a college graduate to adjust himself to the requirements of industry. That time represents a loss to industry and by so much retards the accom- plishment of its business.

One cause of this unproductive period is the method of in- struction in our educational system. From the time he enters it to the time he takes the master’s degree, the student is “passing courses;” he is learning lessons from textbooks or lectures (the lectures in most instances are but spoken textbooks) under the disciplinary presence of an older person or the disciplinary in- fluence of a grade or degree, and on demand he reproduces what he has learned. The method is beneficial for a certain limited period. The compulsion to learn a definite number of facts, to do a definite thing in a definitely prescribed way is good for a lad up to, and even including a portion of, his college years. Prolonged beyond that point of usefulness, it becomes fatal to real mentality. It makes the mental mechanic, but not the intelligent master of ideas.

The college can and should teach the boy something else than how to learn a lesson or how to do a piece of work from detailed directions. It must so teach if it is to make a large return to industry. We will illustrate from the teaching of chemistry, of course. Can a textbook in General Chemistry be taught without teaching a textbook? Can we have a classroom and no classroom machinery? Can we have a schedule of appointments that take a student’s intelligence from one problem to anotherL while requiring him to move his body From one spot to another?

bad about that.

1 Received April 27, 1922.

Of course we can. In general, four things -acquisition, recognition, application, and description of facts.

Not a t all. It shall be Boyle’s and Charles’ 1,aws. Shall the require- ment be to commit those laws to memory together with the for- mula for their use in problems? Require the student to learn the facts and give him twenty-five or fifty or a hundred problems to solve. Require him to make his own equations, to apply the quantities given in accordance with the facts. Then he will know the law and the formula.

Shall the laboratory assignment be Experiment 47? Not a t all. The assignment is ether. The student should be re- quired to discuss with his instructor what he proposes to do, how he proposes to do it, how he will know when he has done what he proposed to do, and finally to present for inspection and explanation not only a finished product but the residues of the reaction. That’s the way to get facts, to recognize facts, to express facts, and to use facts.

The final requirement of a college course in chemistry should be the handling of an original problem. Without that kind of training a young chemist is bound to be an “unprofitable ser- vant” in industry for some time after his graduation. With it, the period of unprofitableness can be materially reduced. To accomplish the result certain conditions are essential.

It is not the total number in college that affects the product. It is the size of the instructional group. Ten or a dozen a t a time is about the maximum a good chemistry teacher can handle.

2-Superior students separated from inferior students. The two cannot be taught together. The combination harms the superior and does not benefit the inferior.

3-The strongest and most experienced teachers over freshmen and seniors, the inexperienced or those with limited experience over sophomores and juniors. The first year of college life is relatively the most important of the four and requires the finest and surest pedagogy. The final steps in the training likewise require the careful, direct supervision of instructors of long and success- ful experience. Neither the first nor the last year is a proper time for the pedagogical experiments of untried teachers.

4-A limitation of the number of students and of hours the good teachers teach. Fine pedagogy, as in every other relation of life where minds and spirits of human beings are in contact, takes “virture” out of a man. One must be given time to re-accumu- late the power.

I would like to see colleges rich enough and strong enough to put them into practice. Industries can well afford to help colleges keep instructional groups small enough to be individualized, segregate superior students, and assign the best teachers to the first and fourth year men. Colleges will thus be able not only to produce better trained men, but to reduce by a considerable amount the length of the unprofitable period of the new man in a plant. This is a way in which the college can help industry.

What are we after?

Shall the assignment be pages 1 to 10 in the textbook?

Not a t all.

1-Small instructional groups.

I think these are sensible suggestions.