7 2 THE NA TU RE-STUD Y RE VIE W [2 : 2 - FBE ruary, .go6 



with light and sound. The question of food which is so prominent 

 in elementary books of hygiene, may be associated with lessons in 

 domestic science, and also with nature-study lessons on animals and 

 plants which are used for human food. These are simply suggestions 

 of possible correlations which would involve hygienic teaching in 

 nature-study and elementary science work now in the schools. Such 

 correlations would undoubtedly make the hygiene vastly more inter- 

 esting to pupils, while at the same time avoiding a separate time 

 assignment. It is doubtful whether there is any hygiene useful for 

 pupils in any of the first six or seven grades of the elementary school 

 which it is not possible to bring into close relation with biological and 

 physical nature-study. 



One caution may be necessary, namely, that hygiene should not be 

 dragged into nature-study to such an extent as to make it as wearisome 

 as the present elementary " physiology." This may result from too 

 frequent repetitions of essentially the same correlations. 



Summarizing the foregoing discussions, it is recommended as fol- 

 lows : (i) in the lower grades lessons in hygiene should be corre- 

 lated as closely as possible with lessons in nature-study and domestic 

 science; (2) anatomical and physiological study of internal organs 

 should not be undertaken before the last year (possibly in certain 

 cases next to last) of the elementary school, at which time a year's 

 course of two or three 30-minute lessons weekly should deal with the 

 essential principles of structure and functions of the human body. 



In a later contribution to this magazine the writer will describe an 

 eighth-grade course which involves the above suggestions. It is 

 almost unnecessary to say that such a course must be in a private 

 school, for at present public schools must teach ' ' physiology ' ' accord- 

 ing to the demands of the special laws which are radically opposed to 

 the ideas of the leading teachers of science in American schools and 

 colleges. However, it is high time that we begin to make some 

 progress with the "physiology" problem, and surely this does not 

 mean quiet acceptance of present conditions as final for the future. 

 On the contrary, we may be making some progress by studying the 

 experiences of schools free from intolerable laws, and from them plan 

 for the time when science teachers in our public schools will be free to 

 choose the place of " physiology " in the curriculum and select and 

 arrange its subject-matter according to the advice and experience of 

 the best scientific educators. 



