The role of the secondary school in the teaching of science

JUN 01, 1952

While the national income has tripled, the author points out, expenditures for public education have remained practically static. Factory wages have gone up an average of 56 percent while salaries for teachers have advanced only 7 percent. Since most extra earnings of factory workers were made possible by increased output resulting from use of machines invented and designed by scientists and engineers trained by teachers, he adds, we have here a flourishing vine that doesn’t know yet that its roots are withering.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3067618

George R. Harrison

A serious shortage of scientists and engineers exists in the United States at the present time, which appears likely to become very critical in the next few years. It is evident that only part of the shortage arises from the present emergency, in which the scientist becomes for the first time one of the most important factors in military planning; long‐term shortages of scientists also exist which are likely to affect adversely the national economy and morale. From industry, from government laboratories, from universities, from the teaching profession itself, comes increasing clamor regarding the shortage of scientists in both fundamental and applied fields.

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References

1. U.S. Office of Education. Statistical Summary of Education, 1947–48, p. 32, Table 16.
2. John H. Lux and Leroy S. Moody, Chcm. Eng. News Dec. 17, 1951.
3. M. H. Trytten, Jour. Engineering Educ. Oct. 1951, p. 77.
4. Bulletin No. 9, Teaching of Science in Public High Schools, U.S. Office of Education.
5. U.S. Office of Education, World Almanac 1852; Higher Education, Oct. 15, 1949.
6. Manpower for Research, Report of the President’s Scientific Research Board, Oct. 11, 1947, p. 95.

More about the authors

George R. Harrison, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.