GRAPHICS IN EDUCATION

BY NORMAN ARNOLDPurdue University^ Lafayette, Indiana

It is a fairly well recognized fact that "symbolism" plays avery important role in modern life. One can readily agree thatthe mathematician, chemist, doctor, and engineer employ sym-bols not recognized by the uninitiated, but the average personreads the comic strips in the daily paper without being con-sciously aware that the comic artists have developed a specialsymbolism of their own for conveying ideas. The stars for ablow on the head, the reduction in stature, and the shading ofthe face to represent extreme embarrassment are a few of themore common symbols of the craft. The written language haschanged so greatly since the pictorial hieroglyphics of the earlyEgyptians that in shorthand, in the telegraph codes, and othercodes, we even have symbols for the symbols. And it is a rareword that, when written, has any resemblance to the thingit represents. The spoken language is slightly more vivid, andstill contains some words which are suggestive by their sound,such as hiss, plop, buzz, hoot, snore, zig zag, crisscross, and thelike.As a result of the motion picture, rotogravure newspaper, and

many other forces, there is a marked tendency to return tosimpler, more direct, and more easily comprehended styles ofthought communication. Highway markers with curves, crosses,etc. in place of words are one common example of this.The technical developments of this century have led to wide-

spread use of graphical methods in industry. The blacksmithwho made the sparks fly under the spreading chestnut tree hadno need of a blueprint to show him how to shoe a horse or fix abuggy, but the automobile mechanic who has succeeded him ispractically forced to obtain from drawings some of the informa-tion about the complex mechanisms, especially when a newmodel first appears. The popularization of radio caused millionsof people to learn the intricacies of connection diagrams, andmany youths and adults will continue to be attracted to radio,and will need to be able to read wiring diagrams. If low-costhouses become an actuality, another large group of persons in-terested in constructing their own homes will learn about houseplans.

Economists and statisticians, who have come to the fore in

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the popular mind during the last few years, are adopting graphi-cal methods more extensively in their work because suchmethods lend themselves readily to the quick presentation ofquantitative information, and even to the illustration of princi-ples. Historically, maps are the earliest known form of sym-bolic graphic representation. Their importance has been greatlyincreased by the automobile, radio, airplane, and all the otherfactors tending to broaden our sphere of geographical interests.Elementary maps of a familiar neighborhood can be under-stood and made by children not yet able to read,’ and theymight be introduced in the schools much earlier than they arewith beneficial results.

It is quite natural that important changes in ways of livingand doing should be felt in the school curricula after their mani-festation outside of the school. As most readers are aware, mo-tion pictures have been employed to some extent for educa-tional purposes, and there is a very definite place for them inthe scheme of things, but the use of motion pictures is morespectacular than some other similar methods which may beemployed to make school subjects vivid and vital. Better illus-trated textbooks are of tremendous value in this respect, andgreater use of diagrammatic illustrations by teachers can beextremely helpful. Progress is being made along these lines, butthe inertia opposing changes that is inherent in a large andwidely scattered group of teachers is enormous, and the move-ment should be accelerated in some way.

It is significant that some of the newer high school mathe-matics books contain a large number of problems requiringgraphical answers instead of a single number or equation. Amore thorough grasp of the principles naturally results fromobtaining or presenting the solutions in graphical form.

It may be well to point out that there are three distinctphases to "graphics in education.n (1) Because of the presentand growing importance of graphics in our daily life, the publicschools should help students to acquire some skill in reading andinterpreting various types of graphical diagrams in order thatthey may be equipped to function more effectively as citizensin this technical age. (2) The ability to represent ideas in graphi-cal form is a corollary to item one. An increasing percentage ofpersons will find need for this skill, but it is less necessary thanthe ability to read the graphical language, just as writing is lessnecessary than reading. (3) Associated with increased training

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in graphic methods, there should be a further increase in theiruse by teachers and textbooks as a means of conveying ideas�resulting in even more efficient teaching. No one of these threesteps can actually precede the other two, because they are soclosely inter-related, but the initiative will have to come fromparents or from teachers�preferably from teachers who canvisualize the value of another teaching channel, more directand more exact in expression, than words.

VITAMIN B MAY PLAY PART INBODY’S FAT PRODUCTION

A new role for vitamin B, helping the body gain weight by building upfat, is suggested by experiments reported by Drs. Dorothy V. Whipple andCharles F. Church of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicineat the meeting of the American Society of Biological Chemists.Animals given diets that contained no fat but plenty of vitamin B were

able to gain more weight than their mates on the same fat-free diet butwithout the vitamin. Comparing the average body composition of theanimals, the Philadelphia investigators found that fat accounted for halfthe gain in weight made by the animals on the vitamin diet. Water ac-counted for the other half of the weight gain.The figures, they reported, suggest the possibility that vitamin B plays

a role in the building up of fat in the animal body.Vitamin B is found in moderate amounts in most natural foods, but its

chief sources are wholemeal cereals, yeast, peas, beans, egg yolk, nuts,liver, kidney and heart. Lack of this vitamin causes beri-beri, a diseasemostly found in the Orient, but which can occur anywhere if this vitalfood factor is omitted from the diet.

Consequently, fat persons cannot hope to lose weight by omitting vita-min B from their diet, even if the investigations reported today are con-firmed and the vitamin is found actually to be important in weight-building. But thin persons wanting to gain weight may in the future beadvised to add liberal amounts of the vitamin to their diet.

ORIENTAL CHESTNUT TREES PLANTEDIN NATIONAL FOREST

Extensive experimental planting of chestnut trees from Asia are to bemade in the George Washington National Forest in Virginians Blue Ridgethis spring. The test is to determine whether the trees can take the place ofthe native chestnuts, practically wiped out during the past three decadesby the fungus-caused chestnut blight.

This fungus came to America from the Orient, where chestnut trees areresistant to it. Many varieties of Oriental chestnuts have been brought tothis country by plant explorers of the Department of Agriculture, and theirseedlings are now ready for planting.The destruction of the chestnuts was a major blow to American forest

industries, for the chestnut is a tree of many uses. It yields rough timber,wood for furniture making, bark for tanning, nuts for human food, and isalso one of the most valuable trees for the support of wildlife in the forest.