The Optional Experiment
ALTHOUGH the development of teaching by the project method in our secondary schools has been demonstrated on many occasions to be highly successful, it is surprising to note the lack of attention this method is given in the teaching of students at the university level. Particularly among the laboratory sciences, any conscientious laboratory instructor will at some time be aware of many of the inadequacies of the routine approach. It becomes evident that the assigned experiment is a game to see who can dominate the equipment and the instructor and achieve a "completed experiment" by the end of the period. With this goes the attitude of the student that the answer to the experiment is obviously in front of him and any failure on his part to produce it will be penalized. These attitudes tend to lower laboratory morale. Many of those who have felt the inadequacies of the laboratory method have simply dropped it from the curriculum rather than attempt to make it more efficient. Ralph Gerard, of the Physiology Department of the University of Chicago, apparently has coped effectively with this problem. In the Journal of Chemical Education he describes a new laboratory method in which the students were turned loose into the laboratory with no directions and no required work or hours. The results of this procedure seemed to eliminate some of the evils mentioned here. There was, however, one ominous note in his paper. A questionnaire sent to the members of the class during the progress of the course and afterward asked: "In what respect has the course failed?" Among the answers received were the following. One student wrote, "Perhaps the course has failed to be comprehensive enough for the individual student." A second said, "The course has failed in that it has not given a good general background. Each person is quite familiar with one subject but quite hazy on the rest of the field. They know something but not enough in a general way."' Both of these students realized that they were too poorly grounded in the fundamentals of the subject. This is a serious accusation from the student, for it affects equally the good and the poor. One wonders where those who went on in the field finally learned their fundamentals. Some modification of the course is