70 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



About this time, however, the agricultural colleges and 

 schools of home economics, which had reached a high state 

 of development in the universities began to scan the sec- 

 ondary field, and soon, some of those who had the clearest 

 vision of the possibilities of and the urgent need for a more 

 practical education for the young people in the high 

 schools, began to insist that courses in agriculture and in 

 home economics be offered in the high schools. Now, since 

 the science curriculum was already full, this demand 

 usually took the form of a proposal to substitute these new 

 subjects for some of the sciences already in the curricu- 

 lum. This situation soon divided the friends of science 

 education into two camps, under the banners of pure 

 science and applied science respectively and a bitter civil 

 war ensued, involving many odious comparisons of the 

 relative educational values of the two kinds of science. 

 This warfare lasted for five or six years during which time, 

 the High School Conference at the University of Illinois, 

 the Central Association of Science and Mathematics 

 Teachers and other similar organizations, staged annually, 

 royal battles over these issues. Even this Academy was 

 drawn into the fray, and the symposium at the Urbana 

 meeting in 1910 on the subject: "The Relation of Pure 

 and Applied Science to the Progress of Knowledge, and of 

 Practical Affairs" did much to help clear the atmosphere. 



It is pleasing to relate that this war ended definitely and 

 as suddenly as it began. I recall definitely that the battle 

 was going on with all its fury at the meeting of the High 

 School Conference in November, 1909, and that a year 

 later, all the smoke of battle had cleared away. Every- 

 thing that was said and done at the 1910 meeting of the 

 High School Conference was marked by a spirit of concili- 

 ation and mutual understanding and appreciation between 

 the late belligerents. What had happened? Siuiply this: 

 Discussion, and thought and fair and open mindedness had 

 cleared away the misconceptions which had been the real 

 cause of the war. The friends of the older sciences had 

 discovered that there are some real possibilities for good in 

 the new ones, and that they have a real claim to a place in 

 the sun. The friends of the newer sciences had profited 

 by the criticisms that had been hurled at them, had gained 

 a clearer vision of the true mission and place of their sub- 

 jects, and had also discovered that some knowledge of the 



