SYMPOSIUM ON SCIENCE ANT) RECONSTRUCTIOX ll 



older aud more fundamental sciences was a necessary pre- 

 requisite to theirs. The friends of the older sciences were 

 ready to admit that an academic knowledge of funda- 

 mental science alone, is not a sufficient education for the 

 masses of young people flocking into the high schools. The 

 war was over, science education had taken a distinct step 

 forward, and the friends of science education were once 

 more united in the interests of the common cause. 



Xot all the problems of science education were solved, 

 however, when this peace was declared, for two new 

 sciences, each demanding more space than was demanded 

 by any of the older sciences had been added to the list 

 which must compete with other subjects for space in the 

 brief four-year high school curriculum. Instead of 

 crowding other subjects, which had the force of tradition 

 and inertia behind them, out of the high school, the numer- 

 ous sciences began to crowd each other out. The statistics 

 collected by the Commissioner of Education, began to 

 show a rapid decline in the percentages of high school stu- 

 dents pursuing the older sciences, and especially of those 

 which happened to occupy the first two years of the 

 course. Botany, zoology, pliysiology, and physical geogi'a- 

 phy soon began to verge toward the vanishing point, and 

 some of them have almost reached tliis point in some parts 

 of the country. 



In the midst of this perplexing situation, there suddenly 

 appeared above the horizon, what seemed to many of us, 

 another menacing factor in the form of an exceedingly 

 etiecrive catch-phrase, and slogan : General Science. At 

 fii'st. this phrase meant many different things to different 

 people, but it soon gathered under its banner all peoi)le to 

 whom it meant anything good, no matter what that mean- 

 ing happened to be, aud so it soon became a formidable 

 factor. To some of its early advocates, it meant merely 

 samples of all the sciences done up in small packages. To 

 some it meant a much more substantial thing, namely: 

 environmental science materials, attacked from the stand- 

 point of the child's immediate interests and needs. To 

 some administrators, it meant an opportunity to put all 

 science into a small space and thus a satisfactory solution 

 of their administrative troubles. To some of the conserva- 

 tive students of science education, it meant simply an- 



