PAPERS ON HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE 411 



Drought in. It is understood that more credit is given 

 those who thus interest themselves. Whatever the sub- 

 ject in hand, time is always taken to discuss the new 

 specimen in class. If it is a snake, the question of its 

 possibly being a poisonous one may arise. A dozen other 

 points may be suggested. If it is a snake egg or frog's 

 eggs, the method of propagation or the whole life history 

 may be gone into. It takes skill acquired by experience 

 to prevent such every day discussions from crowding 

 out regular assignments. Nothing is so common or so 

 strange that it will not excite interest. Last week, the 

 music instructor found a mouse that had dropped into 

 her empty metal waste basket and had later given birth 

 to a family of four. These were promptly delivered to 

 the biology room. Two days after, a litter of young rats 

 was brought from home by one of the girls. Then it 

 was that we discovered that eight out of about one hun- 

 dred twenty students in four classes had not known till 

 that day that rats are not grown up mice. Daily con- 

 nection of farm, garden, household activities, and the 

 student's own bodily activities with formal instruction 

 continually brings up unexpected and startling ignor- 

 ance of common live things about us. So, students and 

 teachers do not grow stale over the subject. 



A frank desire to know and to correct misunderstood 

 situations is engendered. We find that we are taking 

 a delight in ferreting out unfounded beliefs. It is sur- 

 prising how many of them come to light. There is much 

 of the superstition and mis-information which has been 

 handed down from our forefathers and which still clings 

 to us. We cover up superstition with scientific facts. 



The making of a scrap book of biological clippings 

 from current periodicals is one of our greatest aids in 

 making everyone feel that biology is a living subject 

 made up of things that are happening right now. Only 

 five such clippings are required each month. The child 

 is required to quote from his text or from a specified 

 reference list of texts, something relating to the clipping. 

 This is recorded in the scrap book, together with an 

 original comment by the student. And here comes the 

 rub. It is so hard to be original. 



