48 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
ignorance of illiteracy for many of the victims are of what we 
might call the educated class. The ignorance that plays into 
the hands of such imposters is the ignorance of the human body 
‘which prudish persons frequently mistake for a type of 
chastity. Any person ignorant of the structure of the human 
body and its normal functions is just as much an obstacle in 
the path of social and economic advances of a community or 
nation as is the quack who preys upon such ignorance. 
Turning now to some of the other phases of zoology which 
might be emphasized as of direct human value, the much dis- 
cussed problems of heredity and those of sociology growing out 
of the operations of heredity can have little significance to the 
individual who is not acquainted with the fundamental con- 
cepts of the animal cell and its structure. Not that I claim an 
extensive study of the cell by students of this age is desirable 
or even possible, but the concept of the cell as the unit of 
bodily structure with at least a brief knowledge of the repro- 
duction of the cell and the functions of the chromosomes as 
bearers of the determiners of hereditary qualities constitute a 
type of knowledge possession of which is essential to right 
thinking and to the abandoning of superstition regarding the 
genesis of life and the hereditary relation of parent and 
_ offspring. 
A full realization of man’s place in the universe can come 
only after a careful study of man’s relations to other animals. 
In its entirety, this is a problem too deep for the adolescent 
mind to grasp. However, it has been well said that primitive 
man felt rather than knew his relationship with other animals. 
In much the same way the child with his inherent interest in 
animals offers a foundation already prepared upon which to 
build a knowledge of those animals and a beginning of an 
understanding of his relations to other organic beings. Here 
is a field where the study of zoology alone can direct the 
primitive instincts of kinship between man and other forms of 
life toward the formulation of a rational concept of man’s place 
in the universe. 
Some practical knowledge of organic evolution must be 
behind every move in the progress of man. The facts of evolu- 
