In what follows, text in italic font is taken directly from Professor Gillespie's paper. I will follow the italicized text with my comments and observations. I agree with this sentiment, but I have reservations about its operational consequences. Teaching simple models that students can easily digest is tempting, but these easily digestible models are frequently scientifically incorrect. In my opinion Gillespie presents several models of this kind of simplicity that are incorrect and, if taught, would have to be un-taught, or retracted, at some later time in the education of the chemistry major or others who study chemistry beyond the general chemistry sequence.
Elements are a kind of matter that consist of atoms of only one kind.
Besides being casual in tone, the definition is not correct. It is clear from reading this paper and its footnote, that it is a transcription of a talk given at a national ACS meeting. However, The Journal is a peer reviewed scientific journal and by not correcting this statement it appears to be sanctioning this rather informal and inaccurate definition. All chemical bonds are formed by electrostatic attractions between positively charged cores and negatively charged valence electrons. At this point I will simply observe that there is only one electrostatic force - Coulomb's Law.