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Some of our finest [ about ] Approved Articles (107) Developed Articles (over 900) "I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world." —Margaret Mead Draft of the Week [ about ] (?) Image: University of Amsterdam Archives Johannes Diderik van der Waals, most probably around 1910 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Johannes Diderik van der Waals (Leiden, November 23, 1837 – Amsterdam, March 8, 1923) was a Dutch theoretical physicist. His name is primarily associated with the van der Waals equation of state that describes the behavior of gases and their condensation to the liquid phase. His name is also associated with van der Waals forces (forces between stable molecules), with van der Waals molecules (small molecular clusters bound by van der Waals forces), and with van der Waals radii (sizes of molecules). He became the first physics professor of the University of Amsterdam when it opened in 1877. Johannes Diderik was the oldest of ten children born to Jacobus van der Waals and Elisabeth van den Berg. His father was a carpenter in the Dutch city of Leiden. As was usual for working class children in the 19th century, he did not go to the kind of secondary school that would have given him the right to enter university. Instead he went to a school of "advanced primary education", which he finished at the age of fifteen. He then became a teacher's apprentice in an elementary school. Between 1856 and 1861 he followed courses and gained the necessary qualifications to become a primary school teacher and head teacher.[more...] New Draft of the Week [ about ] The McGuffey Readers, first published in 1836-37, were a set of highly influential school textbooks for use in the elementary and higher grades in the United States. Indeed, owing to their widespread usage over many years, they played an important role in shaping the American character itself. From the year in which they were first published, and for nearly a century thereafter, successive generations of American schoolchildren used these readers to acquire basic literacy skills and to imbibe the moral lessons they taught. William Holmes McGuffey (1800-73) was the author/compiler of the first four volumes of the first edition of what would eventually become a six-volume set of graded readers. In subsequent years, a series of editors took over the responsibility for the readers, which nevertheless were faithful in retaining their original character as moral shapers of youth. A major revision in 1879 altered the slant of the readers away from the stark Calvinism which had characterized the earlier versions, but did so without sacrificing the basic religious and moral objectives. The readers have sold over 125 million copies, and remain in demand among many who are dissatisfied with modern trends in education and seek a return to a more traditional, "values oriented" education of an earlier era.[more...]