THE TEACHING OF BIOLOGY IN THE PUBLIC 



SCHOOLS. 



By Barton Warren Evcruiann, Ph. Z>. , 



Ichthyologist of the U. S. Fish Commission. 



AS I take it, the principal reasons for the study of Biology in the 

 schools are : 

 I — That the student may receive that peculiar mental train- 

 ing and acquire that peculiar mental habit which can come 

 only from a study of living organisms. 



2 — That he may gain, as fully as may be, an understanding of 

 how each of the vast array of animal and plant forms about him is re- 

 lated each to the others, and to the physical environments which sur- 

 round them, and how they have come to be what they are. 



There are many other excellent reasons for the study of nature, 

 sui^cient to demand for it a prominent place in the work of the schoQls, 

 even if those I have given did not obtain, but they cannot be consid- 

 ered in this brief paper. 



Now, what is that peculiar training or mental habit which is sup- 

 posed to result from a proper study of animals and plants? 



It is that mental attitude which refuses to take things on faith or 

 to accept things on authority; which demands the production of the 

 evidence, and which insists upon a personal examination of the evi- 

 dence, that judgments may be formed and conclusions drawn first 

 hand. 



The training should be such as will enable one to distinguish fact 

 from fancy, reality from fraud and make-believe ; to know truth, as 

 well as falsehood, when he sees it ; to know what he knows and to 

 realize, and promptly admit it, when he does not know. 



This power, it seems to me, is the most important thing the 

 schools can give the child. And to give it in the highest degree 

 requires that tlie child be brought in contact not only with the living 

 forms of the animal and plant world, but with the inorganic world as 

 well, and the various forces or forms of energy whose phenomena sur- 

 round him on every hand. All these are perhaps equally good as ma- 

 terial for teaching the necessity for examining evidence first hand, but 

 organic objects, living and active, and the phenomena connected with 

 their life and growth, possess peculiar advantages not shared by other 

 objects. 



Now, as to the second reason : Throughout life each person is 

 surrounded, whether he realizes it or not, by multitudes of animals and 



