~~Why Study Chemistry?
Why Study Chemistry? - раздел Образование, Part One THE PREDICATE Certainly, The Student Who Has Had One Year Of Chcmistry Remembers Virtually ...
Certainly, the student who has had one year of chcmistry remembers virtually no detail after a few months. The things that stick will generally include some notion of atomic structure, and this information will be of some help to the individual in forming a rational philosophy and in understanding die very urgent implications of atomic power sourccs; but if this is to be all the student gains wc may well be troubled.
It is easy to attack any specific course as contributing little or nothing that the student will use after graduation. However, the huge reality and meaning of education lie precisely in that web of concepts and attitudes which have no meaning without factual detail. It is of no importance that the scaffolding of empirical facts disappear after the cdificc wc call education has been erected.
It is not wise to press the analogy too far. Beside this complex of attitudes and ideas wc have callcd philosophy, or education, there is necessarily gained by the student a good deal of knowledge which might be characterized as off-hand knowledge in the sense that it is immediately present and usable whenever called up. Such is the knowledge the engineer uses in the practice of engineering and his information in the arts and literature which he may use in ordinary conversation. This immediately available information is tool and culture material and its acquisition is defensible.
But what of that information which has been lost unused, is other than scaffolding? The answer is that it has not been lost. Material which has sunk below the level of recall may be much more easily rclcarned and understood than brand-new material. The foundations have been built and lie in readiness for the possible time when a particular skill is to be developed. This non-recall information is thus not useless, even though a great part of it be unused. It might be pointed out that even tool information is largely sunk below the level of recall. Especially in chemistry, though a man has a million facts in his head, he still needs the reference literature.
The unique value of a course in chcmistry is that it is the only course taken by the great majority of students in which they learn the structure and behaviour of the matter of which their environment is composed. Each knowledge is of primary importance in the development of any realistic philosophy or the understanding of nature.
