236 MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



HELPS TO THE HIGH SCHOOL TEACHEKS WHO TEACH 



NATURAL SCIENCE. 



W. J. BEAL. 



At a meeting of science teachers, held in Rochester, N. Y., in 1900, 

 when asked what preparation in botany they would wish students to have 

 for entering college, the replies were uniform : As things now are, we 

 prefer students to enter college without any study of botany, on account 

 of the hasty and imperfect work. Professors Spalding and Newcombe 

 and others have been talking with little effect on this subject till they 

 are weary, and long since I gave up attempting to reform the world. 

 The trustees or boards of education are the men we should talk to, for 

 they employ the teachers, and they are not here. 



I have had a long experience with students who have been taught 

 botany in high schools and I am sorry to say that I place little value 

 on the work. There are some prominent exceptions. There are great 

 differences in high schools. In too many cases the teaching of botany 

 is shifted from one person to another without any stability from year to 

 year with the prevailing notion that any one can teach a class in botany. 



In a few cases the class consists of fifty to sixty persons; in most 

 cases the time for the class is a period of only thirty to forty-five minutes. 

 Little can be accomplished in this way, even with the best of teachers. 



The class should not number over twenty-five and the period should 

 be at least ninety minutes, consisting mostly of laboratory work. The 

 teacher must have received thorough training in botany, otherwise the 

 topic had better be omitted entirely and something else put in its place. 

 I believe in permitting a teacher to teach what she likes best. 



By no means hurry on the start, but go at the study deliberately as 

 though you had all the time you needed. Be just as particular and 

 thorough as you know how to be. of course urging the pupils to study 

 the plants themselves, and not get a lesson in a text-book. The teacher 

 who is compelled to rely on a text-book had better not be entrusted with 

 the work. 



If the teacher is a Douglas Campbell he may begin with the study of 

 the lowest forms, using a compound microscope; otherwise, he better 

 not use a compound microscope. 



What can the State Academy do to help teachers of science— especi- 

 ally those wlio have a fundamental knowledge of the topics they attempt 

 to teach? 



They may prepare and read papers; they may ask any number of ques- 

 tions; they can listen to the most capable teachers of the State. If any 

 society can help such teachers, it is certain sections of the Academy. 

 This is the place for you: you have found it at last; avail yourself of its 

 privileges; welcome to^ the Section of Science Teachers I There may be 

 and should be at every annual meeting discussions covering the best new 

 books, apparatus and a teacher's class wliore mothods of demonstration 

 are the prominent feature. 



