MUCH TIME LOST

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 185, 3 May 1933, Page 8

MUCH TIME LOST

Teaching 1 Non-Essentials In the course of an address to the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry last evening, Mr. T. A. GiendinningM.Sc., emphasised the point that frequently too much time was lost in teaching non-essentials, while essential things were lost sight of. Speaking of chemistry, Mr. Giendinning remarked: “We can still score 10 to 15 per cent, of marks with a sagacious explanation of ‘hard and soft waters’; we still say ‘milky’ when wo mean chalky; there are still teachers who regard chemistry as an object les son in drawing apparatus; and we still enrol evening students whose only evidence of a three years’ course in chemistry is a book containing freehand drawings and meticulously-writ-ten experiments. What should we think of a building instructor who required drawings of hammers and nails, or of a cookery teacher who spent time in making artistic representations of frying pans and toasting forks?

“Tlie artist of the chemistry class is more often than not the lad who would make copper sulphate from zinc, not because he Wants to, but because he has tlie artistic temperament, whereas the boy who jumps at an idea like a dog at a rabbit will most likely draw a flash like a vaseline pot, because his interest is on the Inside rather than the outside of it.”