SCIENCE IN INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 185, 3 May 1933, Page 10

SCIENCE IN INDUSTRY

Trade and Technical Training

DEVELOPMENT ESSENTIAL “Text-books that are inaccurate, amt in many instances completely out of dale, are still in use in our technical colleges, with the result that pupils are not in touch with modern chemistry, and teachers also are frequently not in touch with modern requirements.” These beliefs were expressed last evening in an address to the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry by Air. T A. Glendinning, Al. Sc., F-.1.C., science master at the AA’ellington Technical College, in which he discussed changes which had taken place in England since the Great AVar in regard to tech-, nical education and the application of science to industry. A corresponding development of trade and technical training was just as essential in New Zealand as in other countries, he said.

“I am afraid we shall wait a long time for its coming,” Air. Glendinning continued, “unless our trades and industries are prepared to shoulder a considerable part of the cost, for it is unreasonable to expect the general taxpayer to foot the bill. Aleantime it seems to me that touch more might be done by our university colleges in the direction of encouraging technological science, particularly in the field of chemistry.” “To all intents and purposes chemistry in our secondary schools is no more advanced than before the Great AVar. In some of the high schools a three years’ course obtains, but in the technical schools, neither the length of the course nor the time allotted to chemistry in the syllabus is sufficient to enable a boy to lay a solid foundation on which to build; in fact, chemistry is apparently regarded as a minor subject which finds a place on the syllabus rather as a concession to public opinion than as a basic subject.” Books Behind the Times. Looking through elementary textbooks written thirty or forty years ago, he continued, one was surprised to find how much that had lost its significance, and even its veracity was still retained. Too many textbooks were written for examination syllabuses which were behind the times. “I strongly suspect,” he said, “that many teachers themselves are not in touch with modern chemistry requirements.” During many years of teaching matriculation and post-matricula-tion pupils in evening school he had found that the pupil who had been well taught in chemical principles was the exception rather than the rule. The practical experience of most of them had consisted in preparing and collecting gases, working in clusters of three or four. If sent to a bench five minutes sufficed to disclose the fact that they had never learned the simple manipulation of or how to use a testtube, the one piece of apparatus with which most of the world’s chemistry was carried on. From the time a boy began to make a corner cupboard or a radio set utilitarianism occupied an important place in his outlook, and this was especially the ease with technical-school boys and girls with whom handwork was part of their training. Practical Applications. If a professional chemist were called upon to teach elementary chemistry iu a technical school, he would not wish to absorb the time in demons! rations. He would wish to try the pupils out in several ways of making a substance and comparing its properties with those of other substances, and would apply—what always appealed to boys—the tests which a real chemist applied to detect tlie presence of the substance in familiar natural or manufactured commodities. No teaching would bo considered complete which did not take account of the application of the experiments to processes of life and manufacture.

For the boy who desired to apply himself on such lines, what was there to offer in the evening school? The boy wanted technical chemistry with plenty of practice, but in the past such a course had not been offered. No technical classes in chemistry were offered to those sufficiently advanced in chemistry’ to take advantage of them, while the majority’ of those engaged in trade or industry, who desired’ some knowledge of specialised chemistry, had no technical training what ever, and therefore were unable to make use of present facilities such as they were. Support of Industry’ Needed. To make continuation work in chemistry successful would require not only the co-operation of the heads of secondary schools, but above all the support and help of the industries, said Mr. Glendinning. A young student would have little inducement to carry on unless he saw that it would lead somewhere. “We could not expect perhaps for some years to produce industrial chemists. That is the work of the university: but we could do much of the fundamental training and provide a much-needed link between day school and university. Quite apart from this, an employee who trains his scientific intelligence should be of greater - value to his employer.”