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