In leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said he
had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were. "Oh, yes,"
said the student, ''There are many ways of getting the height of a tall
building with the aid of a barometer, For example, you could take the barometer
out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its
shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building and by thacues bi Simp é
proportion, determine the height of the building." ARCHIVE

RARY.

"Fine," I said," and the others?"

"Yes," said the student. ''There is a very basic measurement method that
you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up
the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer
along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you

the height of the building in barometer units. A very direct method.

"Of course, if you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the
barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the
value of "g'' at the street level and at the top of the building. From the
difference betwzen the two values of "'g"', the height of the building can,
in principle, be calculated.

"Finally," he concluded, "there are many other ways of solving the problem,
Probably the best," he said, "is to take the barometer to the basement and knock
on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to
him as follows: ‘Mr. Superintendent, here I have a fine barometer. If you
will tell me the height of this building, I will give you this barometer.'"'

At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional
answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up
with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think, to
use the "scientific method," and to explore the deep inner logic of the subject
in a pedantic way, as is often done in the new mathematics, rather than teaching
him the structure of the subject. With this in mind, he decided to revive
scholasticism as an academic lark to challenge the Sputnik-panicked class-

rooms of America.

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