fundamental relations of the elements. Considering such points as these, along with the fact that in many cases this student is not quite certain whether G times 8 are 52 or 44-how much are we justified in thinking he will get out of a quantum theory, or an octet arrangement of electronic shells, or a concept of numerous electrons whizzing merrily about in orbits of varying amplitudes, eccentricities and angles with each other?

The writer was impressed recently with a statement made by a teacher of advanced courses, a man of long experience, who was commenting on the quality of material being turned over to him nowadays from the ele- mentary course. He said: "If the teachers of freshmen chemistry would spend the entire year on the one subject of oxygen, and genuinely teach that subject so that the students really knew the fundamentals about oxy- gen at the end of the course, the results would be as satisfactory, culturally and practically, as under the present system of skimming over dozens of topics and not really getting any of them." He was speaking more or less figuratively, of course, and was not referring to those unusually good stu- dents who serve to make the teacher's existence endurable. But it cer- tainly is a question whether the effort of late has not been along the line of increasing surface adsorption a t the expense of permanent assimilation. Those who heard Prof. Donnan comment on the situation at the Ithaca meeting last fall will recall his amusing description of how the present-day freshman discourses glibly and superlicially on radium emanation, X-ray spectra and like topics, hut crashes ignominiously when called upon to explain why we write hydrogen HZ.

We have seen the text-books growing steadilf thicker in recent years, rising from four hundred to five and now even six hundred or more pages. In the light of results from this little test in arithmetic, one pessimistic instructor suggests that we formulate a new law:

"The 'thickness' of chemistry students increases directly as the square of the average thickness of chemistry text-books."

WINNERS OF AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY'S PRIZE ESSAY CONTEST 192P1925

Miss Shirlev Cordill. (I. Newman Manual Trainine School). 455 Walnut Street. . . , . New Orleans, La.

Mr. Henry Shipworth Singletary, Jr., (Port Arthur High School), 314 Beaumont Avenue, Port Arthur, Tex.

Miss Ruth Jamieson, (Whittier Union High School, Whittier, Calif.), Box 674, Rivera, Calif.

Mr. Roger S. Makepeace, (Phillius Academy. Andover. Mass.), 161 Pros~ect Street, Waterbury, Conn.

Miss Marion Honke, (St. Angela Academy, Carroll, Iowa), Butte, Neb Miss Jane Summers, ( ~ n s l e y ~ ~ i g h School), 1300 Pike Ave., Ensley, Ala.