All the sciences offer opportunities to the teacher who desires to make “the science of weapons” attractive to his pupils. School Experiments in the Chemistry of Fighting Materials — A Book of Experiments in Protection against Poison Gas and Air Raids, “informs youth as to the use of, and defense against, chemical warfare.” Its author, Dr. Walter Kintoff, explains in great detail that the defense of the country, in case of war, would have to be taken over by those between fifteen and eighteen, not yet old enough to bear arms. It is therefore essential to teach these children the problems of defense. Nothing could be more important for this than instruction in the practical side of chemical warfare. The Doctor regrets that this careful instruction is not entirely without difficulties, since the “creation of one or another situation in the lessons is bound to meet with this or that conflict not entirely free from danger.” Nevertheless he sets, in his first chapter, experiments with “incendiary materials,” such as the thermite (igniter) used to fill explosive bombs. And he reflects: “Fire has a double mission in matters pertaining to war: on the one hand, it is supposed to cause considerable damage, and, on the other, to wear the population out morally, that is, to break its power of resistance…. It is modem chemistry which puts arson on a new footing.”
Other chapters deal with “Gas Weapons”: “Eye Irritants,” “Lung Poisons,” or “Choking Weapons” (green cross), “Skin Poisons” (yellow cross), and “Nose and Throat Irritants” (blue cross).
Laboratories all over Germany, filled with school-children, playing cheerfully with death and suffering!