St. Charles & Science

In the basement are two radioisotope storage wells. On the roof is a 6-in. telescope, a transparent plastic cupola for cold weather observations, a battery of meteorological gadgets. In between are perhaps the finest science classrooms in any U.S. high school, fitted with electronics laboratory, photographic darkrooms, areas for private student experiments and a specially designed fume hood built to specifications of the Atomic Energy Commission.

The quiet prairie town of St. Charles, Ill. (pop. 7,700), 33 miles west of Chicago, is known mainly as the site of the state reform school. But last week its new high school science setup was the talk of visiting college teachers, who had never seen anything like it in their own institutions. Nothing so delighted the venturesome St. Charles school board, which wrested $140,000 out of the voters and another $30,000 from the town's late, crusty philanthropist, Colonel E. J. Baker (TIME, Nov. 10), for two of the dandiest classroom labs ever conceived by a pair of daydreaming science instructors.

Four years ago John Friedlein and William Miller, who teach chemistry and physics at the high school (683 students), began agitating to remodel their dingy classrooms (built in 1926), which seemed closer to the Bronze Age than to the Nuclear Era. Robert W. Schaerer, a rare kind of school-district business manager, was no man to laugh at them. He got them permission to scour the Midwest for plans that grew a bigger price tag by the hour. "We always went big," says Schaerer, "and this was really big. But the school board didn't duck it." One bond referendum was defeated; but just before the next one in 1957 President Eisenhower spoke twice on television in a post-Sputnik appeal for more science education. That did it. St. Charles kicked in the money. Says Schaerer: "Never has a school district had a more talented and renowned speaker supporting it."

What emerged this summer was an airy, two-floor wing on the regular building with a score of stunning innovations. The chemistry lab has diamond-shaped worktables with ample drawer space and plentiful balances. The physics lab ceiling has hooks and pulleys at 3-ft. intervals for all manner of gravity and pendulum experiments. An electronic control board supplies any kind of electricity to every lab table. This year St. Charles will begin teaching the new M.I.T. physics course. The goal is that at least 10% of the students will have had two years of college work by the time they graduate. Not for nothing have Teachers Friedlein and Miller been on a merit salary basis. Says Miller: "From now on, we're not teaching any cookbook chemistry or physics."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.