2546 Journal of Applied Microscopy 



in the study of the human body itself ; let us look for a moment at a few of the 

 related topics that may be studied to good advantage in a course like this. Boys 

 and girls are by instinct comparative anatomists and physiologists, and the study 

 of the human body offers rare opportunities to develop this instinct. Suppose 

 your class has been studying the skeleton. If there is a natural history museum 

 within an hour's ride, take them there ; give them a set of questions which will 

 apply to the skeleton of any vertebrate, and set them at work on the skeleton of 

 a girafife, a horse, or an elephant. Unless your experience is exceptional, you 

 will find an excited group of boys and girls plying the skeletons and you with 

 questions as to the position and use in the specimen before them of the various 

 bones which they have studied in class. 



Teeth, too, are wonderfully interesting when studied comparatively and in 

 relation to the food which the animal eats. The school museum should contain 

 at least the skull of a horse, a dog, and a rat or a squirrel, for these can easily 

 be procured by the teachers or pupils. These are common animals with which 

 every boy is familiar, and he is thoroughly interested in making a study of the 

 machinery by which these animals grind, tear, or gnaw their food. Other profit- 

 able subjects for comparative study are the various methods of locomotion 

 employed by vertebrates and invertebrates, their methods of getting their food, 

 the ways in which they are protected, and the sense organs which they possess. 

 Much of this observation can be done at home, or afield, or in zoology parks by 

 the individual pupil, if once he acquires the habit of noting resemblances and 

 differences. 



Before closing just a word or two in regard to the study of bacteria. If you 

 wish to teach cleanliness most effectively, devote a half dozen lessons to the 

 study of these micro-organisms. Let the pupils experiment at home with milk 

 and with a hay infusion. Expose culture dishes containing nutrient agar to the 

 air in the corridors before and after sweeping, and let the pupils note the growth 

 of the colonies of bacteria day by day. Teach the boys and girls the principles of 

 inoculation and sterilization, and show them with high power lenses the living 

 germs under the microscope. Emphasize the filthiness and the danger of expecto- 

 ration (better call it spitting) in public places, and call attention to the splendid 

 work done by boards of health and by such men as our New York Waring and 

 Woodbury. We physiology teachers ought to win thousands of votes each year 

 for a clean city government. 



But you will doubtless say it is impossible to consider all these topics in the 

 time assigned to this subject. Perhaps the New York authorities have been 

 rather more generous than those of other cities. Biology is a required subject 

 for all classes throughout the first year, five periods per week. The first half 

 year is devoted to the study of botany ; and in the second twenty weeks there is 

 time for all the work suggested in this paper and for a great deal more. 



Physiology, then, need not be uninteresting and unprofitable. If taught by 

 laboratory methods, it is replete with interest. From an educational point of 

 view it well deserves consideration as an inductive science, and in its practical 

 bearings it is even more useful than the other sciences which are now honored 

 in the school curriculum. As physiology teachers, however, we have much to 

 do along the lines of choosing our subject matter and of developing our ped- 

 agogics. When we have done this and are able to point to years of successful 

 experience, this subject in which we are interested will be given the place in the 

 school curriculum which it so richly deserves. James E. Peabody. 



Morris High School, New York. 



