410 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



past. Too many high school biology instructors are too 

 much skilled in mysterious terminology and too little 

 versed in the common every-day facts of life that are 

 daily crowding about them and their students. Those 

 whose tendencies have been toward the every-day mani- 

 festations of the life within and about them have been 

 drawn to the more popular economic applications of bio- 

 logical knowledge and so are teachers of agriculture or 

 domestic science. Thus it has become that the cartoon- 

 ist's sketch of the bald headed, impractical anatomist 

 peering through his microscope at the mangled remains 

 of an unfortunate insect is not altogether without foun- 

 dation in fact. Some of us are trying our dead level best 

 to live down the imputation, but witness the yearly crop 

 of high school annuals, or "take offs" in the class day 

 exercises ! 



A few years ago, while at a meeting of the Illinois 

 Academy of Science, I slipped away to a botany class in 

 the high school in the same city. They were having 

 laboratory work under a well trained lady from one of 

 the largest universities. The subject was mush-rooms, 

 and the material was in cans. It had been bought in 

 Chicago. The instructions were in a manual. No con- 

 versation was permitted between pupils. I called the 

 attention of the teacher to the fact that a fine collection 

 of life size wax models of Illinois mushrooms was on dis- 

 play at the Academy meeting a few blocks away and 

 that the students would be welcome either during school 

 hours or after. None came. Was this a human way to 

 act ? Were these boys and girls permitted to react natur- 

 ally toward mushrooms? 



Biology may become the "livest" subject in school. 

 This is possible if every recitation and every laboratory 

 exercise is promptly and naturally connected up with the 

 every day experiences of the child. I may mention but 

 a few of these means of connecting formal instruction 

 with the every day environment. 



We collect material continually. Some organized col- 

 lecting is done at certain appropriate seasons of the year. 

 But every day is also a collecting day, and seldom a day 

 passes that some specimen of plant or animal is not 



