PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 



The past ten years have witnessed the introduction of numerous survey 

 courses in the various sciences. Such courses owe their development 

 to the feeling that the usual freshman course of a particular discipline 

 is at once too technical and too limited for the student who desires a 

 general cultural knowledge of the subject rather than a professional 

 training. Although nearly all educators will agree that some appreciation 

 of the findings and problems of the biological sciences should form a part 

 of a liberal education, the great majority of college students cannot afford 

 time for more than a single course in this field. For them some integrated 

 account of the contributions that biology has made to man's understand- 

 ing of himself and his environment seems more pertinent than the more 

 detailed and more restricted preparation for the advanced courses they 

 will not take. 



If it be granted that a survey course has a place, the question of what 

 viewpoints and what subject matter can and should be presented still 

 remains. The authors are part of a group that was requested to organize 

 a "comprehensive" or "survey" course in the biological sciences for 

 underclassmen at the University of Florida. Now, after some six years of 

 experiment with and modification of subject matter and presentation, 

 with classes of first- or second-year students, they are convinced that a 

 presentation of biological principles that stresses an appreciation of the 

 data and reasoning on which such principles are based is practicable as 

 a single-year course and provides a definite contribution to the student's 

 knowledge of himself and of the world in which he lives. 



In order to adapt the survey course to the needs of those students who 

 decide to major or take further work in biology at the University of 

 Florida, laboratory courses that more or less parallel Part I of this book 

 are elective in biology. 



It is impossible for the authors to acknowledge all of their indebted- 

 ness to other biologists. Perhaps it is not inappropriate to quote from 

 Kipling's introduction to Barrack Room Ballads: 



When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre, 

 He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea; 



An' what he thought 'e might require, 

 'E went an' took — the same as me! 



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