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I always think it is a good thing to get the views of someone 
who can see from a greater distance, and thus get a truer per- 
spective, than those can who are right in the work every day. A 
university professor is right in the work of biology every day, 
but is not in the work of teaching a high school student, and, 
therefore, there are certain problems that he can see at a truer 
angle. Professor Harper, of Columbia University, will now 
speak. 
Professor Harper: What has been said with reference to the 
practical significance of biology, with reference to the individual, 
his life, health, his home life, all that I believe in most thoroughly 
and heartily. Its importance cannot be overestimated; its im- 
portance has not been unrecognized by us teachers. To make our 
work of immediate practical value is an aim that we cannot over- 
estimate in its importance; but that the practical is inconsistent 
with the ultimately practical, that that which is practical to-day 
may not be best for long in the future, is not, it seems to me, so 
absolutely clear. And so I want to say I believe that school teach- 
ers, whether in the university, or high school, or grades, or kin- 
dergarten, must remember that the most we realize about men, 
boys, women, and girls is that they are nothing but animals with 
an ambition to become understanding animals; with the power 
that comes with knowledge. Knowledge may interpret itself; it 
is power; it is the thing that gives the grown man the greatest 
pride in himself; the boy the greatest pride in himself; the girl 
the greatest pride in herself. It is not what he knows, what he 
understands, that he respects himself for. That does not mean 
that we have to eat and live in associations or organizations, 
under great difficulty with mixed desires, opinions and theories 
and all that. The function of the lowest animals is to administer 
to this side a the being. In ministering to this side of our many- 
sided make up, I believe that many of the other things will be 
added unto us, also things of more immediate significance. The 
knowing, the understanding, is the power, after all, that places 
the man in business, that places the inventor, that places the 
scholar ; it is the thing that counts. We are becoming every day. 
more convinced of the highest capacities of human life. Do not 
let us be afraid of science itself. It is our own product. The 

