REMARKS TO INSTRUCTORS xvii 



is grouped, or the textbook may be so used, or the laboratory work. 

 Teaching is such a personal matter that each instructor must develop 

 his own methods. Nevertheless, there are some fundamentals of good 

 teaching in any subject. If laboratory work is to mean what we as- 

 sume that it does, and not merely a routine of mechanical activity and 

 memorization, it must be used in training the student to appreciate 

 the original sources of biological knowledge and the inductive method 

 of science. In a first course of zoology this may seem hopeless, but the 

 attempt should be made, even though so many students seem constitu- 

 tionally unable to learn in terms of anything but memorizing from 

 secondary sources. If laboratory study is to fulfill its assumed func- 

 tion as a modicum of first-hand observation that enables the student 

 to understand what he reads in his textbook and hears in lectures, 

 there should be a close correlation between these three phases of the 

 instruction. If the method pursued be an inductive one, the lectures 

 and text will not be continually telling the student in advance what he 

 may expect to see next day in the laboratory, nor discussing what was 

 studied with scant explanation weeks ago and has, therefore, lost all 

 vividness. A truly inductive approach to any topic gives only the 

 minimum of explanation and text assignments before the student sees 

 for himself. When such first-hand knowledge has been secured, even 

 though the amount be limited, the instructor can build securely the 

 superstructure of his explanations and discussions of principles. These 

 directions have been developed in conformity with such a scheme. 

 They are in most places so written that the student may proceed with 

 the initial laboratory work in any topic without much preliminary 

 discussion by the instructor. To illustrate concretely, if students first 

 examine the amoeba in the laboratory, being guided by such directions 

 as these, a subsequent lecture may omit much that would have been 

 necessary had the lecture preceded any laboratory work. Likewise, 

 text assignments can be read more understandingly if they have been 

 preceded by some actual observation. The ideal scheme, according to 

 this method, would be to have the student return to the laboratory for 

 the completion of his study after such lectures and assignments; and 

 finally to have the whole gathered together in summary and quiz by 

 the teacher. Of course, the exigencies of scheduled periods often pre- 

 ven\, such a procedure. The details must rest with the teacher, if he 

 follows the inductive method. And, in any case, he must do the job 

 in the way his mind works. What can be insisted upon is that the 

 course organization that results in a series of lectures given with little 

 or no reference to the current matter of the laboratory defeats the 

 fundamental purpose of laboratory study, which is to give the greatest 



