THE PRESENT STATUS OF 



INSTRUCTION IN GENETICS 



Few Colleges Have Departments Devoted To It — Much Diversity In Methods of 

 Teaching — Growing Tendency To Specialization.^ 



E. E. Barker 



Department of Plant Breeding, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 



THE breeding of plants and animals 

 always has been, and still is, 

 largely empirical. It is only 

 within the last few years that 

 the experimental science of genetics 

 has thrown light on the phenomena of 

 heredity and has sought to interpret 

 the practices of breeding. Science has 

 followed practice with explanation in 

 this field. 



The increasing economic pressure of 

 living conditions is forcing upon us all a 

 recognition of the necessity for higher 

 production under existing conditions — 

 making the two blades of grass grow 

 where only one grew before. The 

 urgent and vital questions that con- 

 front us, then, are these: Who are the 

 persons who are going to increase the 

 production by better breeding, and 

 where are they going to find out how to 

 do it? Obviously, the persons will be 

 the actual breeders and farmers, not 

 the professors and experimentalists with 

 their pedigree cultures of primroses and 

 rats and guinea-pigs. The successes 

 and failures of their own work will 

 determine largely their methods. But 

 more and more the breeders and farmers 

 are coming to look to the colleges and 

 experiment stations to supply them with 

 scientific knowledge to guide their 

 practices. So the question is an im- 

 portant one also, how the breeders are 

 being in.=tructed and how the research 

 men are being trained. Furthermore, 

 the importance of heredity in almost 

 every phase and relation of human life 

 is now coming to be so universally 

 recognized that many of us feel no 



person is liberally and usefully educated 

 unless he has gained the genetic outlook 

 on life. A broad, general course in 

 genetics should be included in the 

 curriculum of every college pretending 

 to provide such an education. The 

 teaching of genetics is, then, a very 

 important item in our educational 

 program at the present day. 



These same ideas were expressed 

 five years ago in an editorial in the 

 American Breeders' Magazine as follows: 



"The teaching of the science of heredity 

 and breeding, and the training of experts 

 in plant and animal breeding and in eu- 

 genics, is rapidly coming into our systems 

 of education. The value of a study that 

 peculiarly combines cultural with voca- 

 tional values appeals to the student and 

 will bring this subject rapidly into demand, 

 as will also its interest as a phase of biologj', 

 which fascinates. Its vital relation to 

 the economic production of farm products 

 and therefore its relation to the cost of 

 living, will make it attractive to students 

 pursuing general and vocational courses 

 not concerned primarily with genetics. 

 Classes in genetics in our colleges and 

 universities will be especially interesting 

 and vital for those preparing for vocations 

 which relate to euthenic betterments." 



It was with the purpose of ascer- 

 taining how generally these conditions 

 were felt and to what extent these needs 

 were now being supplied that a quest ion- 

 ary was recently sent out by the author 

 to many of the leading educational 

 institutions and agricultural experiment 

 stations in the United States and 

 Canada. The replies to this quest ion- 

 ary will be svmimarized briefly in this 

 paper. It must be borne in mind that 



1 Paper No. 57 of the Department of Plant Breeding, Cornell University. Read in Xew York 

 Citv at the thirteenth annual meeting of the American Genetic Association, December 26, 1916. 



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