Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1942-08-27

To carry on the war to success
full completion industry is requiring
more and more youth, with technical
training. This young lady, intently
studying an object through a high
powered microscope, will be well
prepared to take one of the thou
sands of jobs which will be open to
her when she leaves high school.
"hurry the preparation of men" is
logical demand. 1t has been pro-
posed that high schools continue
during the summer, on Saturdays
and holidays, that the school terms
be reduced in length in order to give
those who will soon be under arms
as much education as possible.
In general, educators have strong
ly opposed universal acceleration of
high school pupils.
The attitude of the Wartime
commission of the United States
Office of Education may be TAX
en- as typical. Its recent report
points out that Fastening the
progress of students through
school will enable them to ego
into defense jobs, defense train
ing classes, non-defense jobs to
replace persons who have left
for defense jobs, or into the
armed forces =. or to enter
college earlier" These pur- :
poses are commendable, thinks
the commission, but it rules
against general acceleration in
favor Of stepping up the rate of
progress only for pupils who are
physically and Intellectually
able to speed up with profit to
the war effort and no damage to
the pupils themselves.
Because this opinion is so widely
held by educators, there is little
likelihood that the school year 1912
43 will be shorter than the years
preceding it. Another policy will be
followed by colleges and higher in
situations where the maturity of stu
dents and the exigencies of war
make acceleration feasible and prof
table.
Different Courses Emphasized.
The students who are entering
school this month will find some out
standing shifts of emphasis in the
courses of study since September,
1911. These do not represent radi-
cal changes.
Only a few of these changes can
be offered by way of illustration.
Geography is an excellent subject
with which to begin since, unlike
current events and history, it is
usually thought of as not changing
much from day to day.
The continents and oceans, the
mountains and rivers are more or
less constant in size and position.
These physical facts, however, are
not of great importance except as
they affect the lives of men. The
geography textbook, therefore, which
includes chapter on the rubber
plantations of Sumatra and the
Malay peninsula, is due for some
revision. War has considerably al
tered the political status of great
portions of the map, world COM
merce has found new trade routes.
and trade itself is heavily in COM
modities little sought few wears
ago.
Methods of travel are chang
ing the character of the maps which
today's students will use. Aviation
has made the 'fat map" or Mer-
Gator projection of secondary impor-
lance. The globe is taking it's place.
Those of us who visualize
Japan due west of the United
States find it difficult to realize
that airplanes on their shortest
route from Tokyo to the Panama
canal would first strike the
United States somewhere on the
Canadian border.
The Need for Mathematics.
Mathematics, another study that
is often thought OF as fixed in nature
since the same two numbers always
add up to the same total, will see
its change also. For many years
the schools have been adjusting
arithmetic to the daily needs of a
people at peace. The textbook prob
lens, therefore, have had to do with
matters like life insurance, income
taxes, budget making, home man.
agement and bookkeeping. Sudden
ly there comes demand for skill
in the use Of the mathematics need
ed by the bombardier and gunner.
The reason for the lack of these
skills is the same reason which
prompted our government to sell
scrap iron and gasoline to Japan.
We were a peaceful people and
hoped to remain so.
The mathematics of naviga-
ton and ballistics, the chemis-
try of the munitions worker, the
physics of the military engineer
will most certainly find their
way into school and college cur
riculums and will stay there I'M
til the minds and hearts of men