Friday, 6 September 1946

SCIENCEIn This Issue

Acceleration: Disgrace or Challenge?S. L. Pressey

Technical Papers In the Laboratory

News and Notes Book Reviews

Letters to the Editor

Table of Contents, Page 2

Published by the

American Association for the Advancement of Science

113th AAAS Meeting-Boston, 26-31 December 1946

_.M

VOL. 104 NO. 2,697 PAGES 215-236.

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4 Vol. 104, No. 2697

6 September 1946

by the crude methods of the lengthened school yearand school day, a fifth of our students can completea. four-year program in three, such technological gainsshould bring more marked savings of time and effortfor both students and institutions. The above takesno account of possible curricular pruning and coordi-nation, which might effect further savings.

RESUME AND RECAPITULATION

Wartime acceleration was by no means an isolatedwar-caused episode, but rather a reappearance of a

long-recognized problem. Early and recent studiesare in agreement in indicating that younger studentstend to be the best students and that the educationallockstep has tended to slow the progress of the ableststudents to the rate of the average. Available dataagree that early completion of collegiate educationtends to be associated with success in adult life. Allthese conclusions appear supported by basic psycho-biological data indicating that American higher andprofessional education, before the war, had tended toextend beyond the ages of greatest readiness for suchlearning and to encroach upon the best years for be-ginning adult socioeconomic life. These problems arenow being accentuated by interruptions in educationresulting from the war. There is evidence also thatwvantime acceleration, although for the most parthastily planned and crude in method, was often suc-cessful, and scattered but challenging evidence indi-cates that better methods are available or mightreadily be devised which would permit more, andbetter, acceleration. Since the majority of our youthhave had their education interrupted, since there isa shortage of individuals with advanced and technicaltraining, and since most universities are swamped withstudents, the closing question is: What may be doneto meet this situation?

The great need is for a reorientation of facultythinking with regard to this whole problem. Facultiesare correct that all-year school endangers their health,restricts their research and scholarship, and makessome students stale and narrow; that mass aceclera-tion, especially in professional schools, asks too muchof average and below-average students; and that theheavy schedules of the war period were exhaustingfor faculty members and many students. The pro-posals do not involve lengthened school years or

Scanning Science-

heavier course loads for either the faculty or moststudents. They involve, not mass acceleration, butselective acceleration in proportion to ability, thusfacilitating the work of both faculty and students.Faculties are right that standards should not belowered, and since academic units are ordinarily ex-pressed in terms of time taken (a four-year curricu-lum or a five-hour course), reduction of years or hoursbecomes suspect. The unsatisfactory nature of suchterms would, however, seem clear: charges of loweredstandards against efforts to save time are perverse.Faculties are right that education should not be hur-ried, but that fact does not justify unnecessary ex-tensions of educational programs into the best yearsof young adulthood. Faculties are right that gainin intellectual maturity is a major goal of education,but there is evidence that undue extension of educa-tional programs tends rather to prolong adolescence,and that maturity may be furthered by desirable ac-celeration. Faculties are tragically wrong in the per-sisting attitude that somehow ingenuity, imagination,and efforts at time and labor saving are inappropriatein higher education, and that during the war or nowwith the flood of returning veterans all they can dois to lengthen the school year or school day or addstaff to do the same old things in the same old way.Continuing practical experimentation to facilitate thework of the faculty and the progress of studentsshould become a regular and expected part of thework of an educational institution. Technological ad-vances are possible in education.We all thrill when advances in medicine add years

to life. Such steps as mentioned above could, ineffect, add years to the productive adult life of ourablest young people, markedly increase the efficiencyof our educational institutions, and aid faculties inthe present emergency. If only such steps could betaken now, at this time of greatest need for them,there might be notable advances not only in scienceand industry but even in education!

References1. COWLEY, W. Hi. Educ. Rec., 1942, 23, 192-218.2. LEARNED, WILLIAM S., and WOOD, BEN D. The student

and his knowledge. Carnegie Foundation for the Ad-vancement of Teaching, 1938.

3. LOWELL, A. L. At war with academic traditions in Amer-ica. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1934.

4. PRESSEY, S. L., and CounBs, ARTHUR. Educ. Res. Bull.,1943, 22, 191-196.

.. PItESSEY, S. L. J. higher Educ., 1944, 15, 191-197.

With the exception of the advancement of scientific research there is no subject more

important to men of science than the adequate teaching of the sciences in our colleges andschools. The efforts now being made by the Natural Science Department of the EducationalAssociation to properly coordinate higher and secondary scientific education should be heartilysupported, and those who have read in Science the addresses by Profs. Bessey, Carhart, Freer,

* Jordan, and Gage, at the recent meeting of the N.E.A., will understand what excellent leader-ship controls the movement.

-4 September 1896

219SCIENCE