130 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Yet, in spite of this shining program, very, very few general stu- 

 dents elected zoology and little glow of enthusiasm could be seen on 

 the faces of those who did. Students in need of some biological knowl- 

 edge for their later professional studies, and drifters from the non- 

 scientific departments of the university in need of credits for gradua- 

 tion, were the chief constituency of the successive classes. Undoubtedly 

 a few earnest men and women sought the course out of genuine desire 

 for knowledge of the kind it was supposed to furnish. But how scat- 

 tering these were I see as I look back in memory over the groups that 

 came and went year by year. 



And were my efforts of no avail at all ? Did nothing whatever lodge 

 permanently and potently in the minds of those students? I try to 

 believe the case is not quite as bad as that, for the lectures and the 

 laboratory work were given with much conscientious preparation and 

 with real labor in the actual doing. Probably the level of general in- 

 telligence of the men and women who took the course is somewhat 

 higher than it otherwise would have been. That is all, I much fear, that 

 can be rightly claimed. None but we teachers whose professional repu- 

 tations and personal interests are at stake will maintain for an instant 

 that this is enough. Our teaching of botany and zoology has failed 

 miserably, judged by what is due from it to the spiritual side of men's 

 lives and to the higher reaches of civilization. Why? The central 

 reason is clear : It is that certain fine-spun theories about " life," 

 rather than animals and plants themselves, have been the main spring 

 of our teaching. The metaphysics of biology and the microscope have 

 stood as almost impenetrable screens between the perennially-interest- 

 ing, everywhere-present, easily-seen facts of the living world, and the 

 natural responsiveness of young learners. 



We have not been metaphysicians by intent or even consciously. 

 Indeed, a supposed fidelity to objective reality has made us loud in 

 denunciation of metaphysics. Nevertheless, " fundamental questions," 

 " ultimate problems," " complete explanations," " final solutions " and 

 other phrases which abound in many biological discussions held as 

 strictly up-to-date are but thin disguises, to discerning eyes, of gen- 

 uine metaphysics. Far be it from me to pronounce general condem- 

 nation on metaphysics. Every domain of knowledge has, from the 

 nature of things must have, its particular metaphysics. The indict- 

 ment against metaplwsics in this case is two-fold. First, metaphysics 

 belongs b} r right only to advanced stages of learning in all fields, and 

 so has no business whatever in formal instruction of the young. Second, 

 the metaphysics that has dominated recent biology, while being bad in 

 many ways, is especially sinister in its influence on education. Mate- 

 rialism, the theory now in widest favor, and vitalism, its chief rival, 

 might be classed together so far as concerns some of their most essential 



