Milford chronicle., 1959-03-27
Milford High School
Library News
awake I'm and Read

Wake Up and, Read Al
Least One Book a Week.
For a better read, better inform
ed America, it is imperative that
we all brush up on our readingi
When SPUTNiK | flashed across
our skies on October 4, 1857, we
were electrified. The Soviet
achievement which was a scientific
technical and military demonstra-
tion of the growing Communist
power shook American complacen-
cy and forced us to take a re-eval-
uation of our position in the world
Among other things in this re-
evaluation, our educational pro-
grams have come under close scru-
tiny. One of the areas that is be-
ing given much thought and about
which there is much discussion is
the science curriculum of our high
schools. In the past fifty years
scientific knowledge and methods
have changed our manner of liv-
ing more rapidly than any form of
human endeavor has ever changed
1t in the past. In each decade now
we get more new understanding of
the processes of nature, and more
ability to control them, than be-
came available in any previous cen
tury. Science is coming to deter
mine how much men can eat, how
comfortable they are, how hard
they must work; and even how long
they will live. Today science is in
the ascendancy and our school sci
ence programs must be able to
cope with not only the needs of to-
day but those of tomorrow.
Among the new science books
that have been added to our collec-
tion are the biographies of men and
women who have done extraordin-
ary things in science. Some of these
books are as follows:
MICHAEL FARADAY" by Har-
ry Sootin.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867) was
the son of an English blacksmith,
apprenticed at fourteen to a book
binder in whose shop he gained
most of his education and acquired
an interest in science from the
Encyclopedia Britannica. That
interests changed his entire life
and led from the job of errand boy
to his becoming master physicist
and a Fellow in the Royal Society.
Faraday attracted the attention of
Sir Humphry Davy, a Professor of
Chemistry at the Royal Institu-
tion, and for forty years Faraday
lived and worked at the laboratory
of the Royal Institution.
His experiments lead to the de-
velopment of the dynamo, the cleo
trio motor, and in fact to an indus
trial revolution.
This book will make absorbing
reading for a young person with a
scientific bent or in fact for any
other student because anyone can
gain from reading about Faraday's
determination and singleness of
purpose in overcoming his lack of
formal education.
ISAAC NEWTON" also by Har-
ry Sootin.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was a
student at Cambridge during 1865
when the University was forced to
shut down because of the plague.
q Is
time to experiment. On the farm at
home in his ill-equipped room, he
made three discoveries which were
to excite the world of science and
start him on an amazing career.
The fascinating story of the ap-
pie and gravity also came about
during Newton's enforced absence
from Cambridge. Only he could
have related the apples fall to the
orbit of the moon-though he for
got to tell anyone of his discovery
and it remained in his notebooks
for twenty years.
This book is picture of the bril-
liant mind of mathematician and
astronomer tracking down the
mysteries of time and space and
the movement of the heavens.
LOUIS PASTEUR" by Laura N.
Wood
Louis Pasteur (1S22-1S95). This
is a warmly human story of one
of the worlds great scientists
whose patient experiments and
painstaking research contributed
vastly to modern medicine, surgi-
In the early years of his work,
medical men ridiculed his germ and
microbe theories but his work with
anthrax, rabies, vaccines and pas
tuerization are dramatic episodes
which proved that his critics were
wrong. He lived to see his doctrines
accepted and bear fruit through the
work of other men who, following
his theories, developed antitoxins
for diptheria and snakebite and the
plague bacillus.
Pasteur despite all the honors
awarded him was a humble man.
His only ambition and one which
he achieved beyond the hopes of
most men was ito contribute in
some way to the progress and to
the good of humanity"
Here again is an inspiring story
and one which will encourage
young people.