44 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIPNCE 
of the possibilities of direct transfer of methods and content to 
the problems of man himself. The study of the structure, 
habits, functions, economic relations, reactions to stimuli, 
carried out in the field and laboratory upon various animals 
finds direct application of methods in the study of man him- 
self. The origin and meaning of sex, relations of individuals 
within a community, degeneracy as an adaptation to conditions 
of life, are all purely zoological problems capable of direct 
transfer in the study of the identical problems concerning the 
human animal. Not all these things can find full explanation 
in a high school course in zoology, but the student may there 
be started to thinking along the right lines and to that extent 
his whole attitude toward life may be modified. 
Let us look for a while at some of the problems of every day 
life, an approach to which can be best made through a properly 
organized course in zoology for high school pupils. As indi- 
cated in an earlier part of this paper practically no one ques- 
tions the intellectual, the moral, and the aesthetic values of 
zoology as a subject of instruction. On the other hand these 
values may well be assumed to be associated in varying degrees 
with all subjects of instruction. As far as these alone are con- 
cerned, one subject probably serves as well as another for train- 
ing students of high school age. There are, however, phases of 
zoological knowledge which hold peculiar values for the indi- — 
vidual and for society. Were these to cease being matters of 
common knowledge among so-called educated peoples much of » 
social and economic progress would be retarded. Conversely 
any agency tending toward the wider dissemination of such 
knowledge is distinctly opening the way to the solution of 
many of our economic and social problems. 
No one questions the value to mankind of the knowledge of 
animals in their relations to disease, and the numerous 
problems associated with this phase of zoology. These have 
been cited so often that it seems hardly worth while to more 
than mention a few specific examples. A few generations ago 
a scourge like typhoid fever was looked upon as a problem 
which was to be solved by the members of the medical profes- 
sion. Today it has in addition assumed a distinctly social sig- 
nificance. Little can be done in any community toward the 
