Journal of Applied Microscopy 



and 



Laboratory Methods 



Volume VI. OCTOBER, 1903. Number 10. 



Laboratory Work in High School Physiology.' 



" Try any plan that you wish," said the wisest high school principal I have 

 ever known, " Try any plan that you wish ; I have never yet seen a course in 

 physiology that amounted to anything." This was an epitome of the situation 

 in New York city seven years ago when the high schools were opened, and I 

 have come to learn that this feeling in regard to physiology courses is the common 

 one, held by a large number of leading educators. 



Now, surely this state of things ought not so to be. It certainly is not diffi- 

 cult to interest a boy in the wonderful processes that go on in his own body, and 

 to lead him to an inductive study of these processes. For his own comfort and 

 happiness it is essential that a youth become an intelligent keeper of the body 

 committed to his care. And if we are to develop an intelligent and lasting public 

 spirit in regard to the matter of home and city sanitation, we must teach the 

 necessary lessons to boys and girls at an age when lasting impressions can be 

 made. Physiology, then, should be regarded as a worthy subject of study, both 

 from its educational value and from its practical bearings on the life of the 

 individual, the home, and the community. 



But why such a widespread contempt for this subject ? While there may be 

 other reasons, I venture to suggest the three following : 



In the first place, in most elementary schools and in a large number of high 

 schools, physiology has not been taught from the standpoint of function. Boys 

 and girls are intensely interested in the uses or adaptations of things. But 

 instead of teaching them physiology, by which we mean the uses or functions of 

 the various organs, we have been compelling them to learn either tiresome 

 anatomical details or dry-as-dust rules of hygiene. They have asked us the uses 

 or whys of things, and we have given them instead the names of a lot of bones 

 and muscles, or a series of thou shalts and thou shalt nots. 



In the second place, there are probably fewer specialists who are engaged in 

 the teaching of physiology than is the case in any other subject. You often 

 hear of music teachers and teachers of Latin who are assigned the extra classes 

 in physiology, because, forsooth, we must in every school at least go through 

 the form of hearing recitations on the human body. Uninteresting text-book 



1 Address before Science Section of National Education Association, Boston, July 9, 1903. 



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