Volume 1, Number 9

Editor Neil Gordon argued in favor of better working conditions for chemistry teachers, "Should there not be a demand that all chemistry teachers be well trained, and then in turn that they receive a wage commensurate with the importance of their work and training." Part of his argument was based on the tremendous practical value that chemistry had already demonstrated in American society, and part was based on his statement that "chemistry is our principal hope in our great fight against disease."

Audiovisual aids were available even in the Journal's first year. Elmer O. Kraemer, University of Wisconsin, described a film on Brownian motion and other ultramicroscopic processes that had been shown at two recent meetings and had garnered considerable attention. For a cost of about $60, the 10-minute movie showed Brownian motion, formation and breakdown of a gel, and coagulation of a colloidal suspension.

W. G. Bowers, State Teachers College, Greeley, CO, described the advantages of laboratory work in the study of introductory chemistry. Those listed were that the laboratory afforded an opportunity for observation, that the laboratory cultivated observational skills, that laboratory work provided students with information, and that laboratory work "fastened" information in students' minds. Through all of these runs the theme that hands-on work provides improved instruction, a contention that was tested by giving students a comparative test over material included only in text and lectures and material also included in laboratory. It was found that "the difference in favor of the laboratory grows larger as the years increase, showing that laboratory work fastens the information better than does the work in the text."

Volume 25, Number 11

More than 30 pages of the November 1948 issue were devoted to papers presented before the Division of Chemical Education at the Chicago ACS National Meeting in April. The symposium raised the issue of how much gravimetric and titrimetric work was appropriate in the beginning course in quantitative analysis for students who would not become chemistry majors. How much instrumental analysis and theory of instrumentation should be included was also discussed. Participants in the symposium included Philip J. Elving, Purdue; N. Howell Furman, Princeton; William M. MacNevin, Ohio State; Harold M. State, Allegheny College; I. M. Kolthoff, University of Minnesota; Philip W. West, Louisiana State; Odon S. Knight, Commercial Solvents Corp.; Olaf Bergeim, University of Illinois College of Medicine; Martha Johnson, General Electric Co.; George Calingaert, Ethyl Corporation; and M. G. Mellon, Purdue. (These questions are revisited in this issue by Perone, et al. on page 1444.)

Cellulose
Thomas John Schoch, Corn Products Refining Company, described higher molecular weight polysaccharides, cellulose, glycogen, and starch, interpreting their properties and functions based on the shapes and sizes of their molecules and the forces between those molecules. To do so he used two types of figures. Some show detailed structures that include individual atoms or monomer units. Others show higher order structural features such as the micellar organization of natural cellulose and association of adjacent branched molecules in a layer of a starch granule.

Starch

Volume 50, Number 11

Twenty-five years later the Division of Chemical Education and the Division of Polymer Chemistry sponsored another ACS-meeting symposium, this time on the introduction of macromolecules at an early stage of the undergraduate curriculum. The leadoff paper by Paul J. Flory, Stanford, pointed out that macromolecules obey the same principles as do other molecules, that materials composed of them are ubiquitous, that study of macromolecular substances need not necessarily be more complicated or difficult than study of other substances, and that the manifold applications of polymeric substances ought not disqualify them as subjects for pure scientific inquiry. According to Flory, "The subject of macromolecules should not, as at present, be introduced through an awkwardly inserted chapter late in the text." Rather, he argued, it should be treated "as an integral part of molecular science (chemistry) of which it is logically a part."

Other symposium papers described how macromolecules could be included in freshman chemistry, how polymerization could serve as a model of a chain reaction, stereochemistry of macromolecules, interaction of polymers with polarized light, a thermal cycle with rubber as the working substance (see figure), and some of the early history of polymer science.

In a related paper, F. E. Bailey, Jr., and J. V. Koleske, Union Carbide Corporation, described spherulitic structures in crystalline polymers. They showed photomicrographs of typical spherulites viewed with crossed polarizers. They also pointed out that spherulites of low-molecular-weight poly(ethylene oxide) could be large enough to be visible without magnification (see figure left).