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courses of the upper years of the high school, biology is to re- 
ceive, in the system of public education, greater recognition than 
ever before. 
The Chairman: The next speaker is Dr. George C. Wood, 
President of the New York Association of Biology Teachers. 
Dr. Wood: I am to speak not as the representative or mouth- 
piece of the Association of Biology Teachers, but as an individual 
teacher of science who is now experiencing the new sensation of 
a gradual transition from one science to another. I say this be- 
cause, so far as I have been able to observe, the sentiment of the 
Association has not yet been crystallized and I cannot, therefore, 
bring to you its convictions upon the subject before us this 
evenin 
We are met to discuss the present tendencies relative to the 
teaching of biology in our high schools. There is a feeling among 
some of us that Biology is in serious danger of being crowded out 
of the curriculum to make way for General Science and possibly 
Community Civics. There apparently is some foundation for this 
feeling, but I am not so sure that the danger is as real as it seems. 
The outside criticism (and by this I mean the criticism of the 
average citizen, and if I may be permitted to say it, the average 
high school principal, and some of the members of the Board of 
Superintendents are included in this group) is largely from those 
who harp upon one string, namely, that Biology does not interest 
the average high school pupil, and therefore it does not make 
good. To this 1 immediately reply that I would like to know if 
there is any subject in the curriculum of the first year of the high 
school over which the average ptipil waxes exuberant. I know 
of none, but I do know that the excessive mortality—that is the 
failures—is never laid at the door of biology. The languages and 
the mathematics are responsible for the greatest number of fail- 
ures. Do students as a rule fail in the subjects which they dearly 
love? To admit or accept this charge of a lack of interest at once 
brings in its train the logical conclusion that all the subjects of 
the first year must go, because the average pupil is not interested 
in them. No, the crux of the matter is not in the lack of interest 
in the subject. The real test of the value of biology, aside from 
its interest-giving qualities, which I claim are as great if not 
