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necessarily depend upon anything taught in physical geography. 

 Physics is given late in the course of study because the college 

 requirements are so stiff that the work cannot be done in the 

 first year. In fact the physics teachers of Chicago find it easy 

 to arrange a course in physics for a proposed first year general 

 science course. I think we can take it as proved that the 

 sciences do not form a graded course comparable with courses 

 in other departments and that the present arrangement is due 

 primarily to extraneouis factors such as cost of laboratories, 

 size of classes and college entrance requirements. 



It cannot be said, however, that school officials in planning 

 courses of study consciously intended to slight the sciences. The 

 fault is largely due to the newness of the sciences themselves. 

 There has been action and reaction both in content and in 

 methods of teaching of the sciences, and the end is not reached. 

 The present laboratory method of teaching science in secondary 

 schools does not date back two decades, while the classics have 

 had the advantage of centuries of teaching, in which a great 

 body of principles and methods has been firmly established. 

 But it appears that school authorities have settled down to 

 the belief that this fragmental practice of teaching science is 

 sufficient, for we see a great uniformity in courses of study in 

 this respect. The only straw that indicates a measure of dis- 

 satisfaction with the present arrangement lies in the agitation 

 for general science courses in the first year of high school. A 

 few schools have already established such a course. 



A good test of the inadequate organization of the science 

 courses is the manner in which the new courses of applied 

 science are being added to the curricula of many schools. I 

 refer to domestic science and agriculture. One would naturally 

 expect that when these sciences are added to the curriculum of 

 any school, they would be articulated with the existing courses 

 in pure science. Before a pupil enters u])on a course in an 

 applied science, he ought to have received training in scientific 

 method and habit of thought by studies in i)ure science, 

 preferably of course in those sciences that underlie the applied 

 science in question. Thus chemistry and botany at least should 



