THE USE OF BIOLOGIC STUDIES IN THE TRAINING OF 

 TEACHERS FOR THE PREVENTION OF INFANT 

 MORTALITY 



By L.EWELLYS F. BARKER, M. D., Baltimore, Professor of Medi- 

 cine, the Johns Hopkins University, and ' Physician-in- 

 Chief to the Johns Hopkins Hospital 



The advantages of a training in biology for the teacher who 

 desires to do something toward educating children in matters 

 of hygiene are manifold. A large proportion of our teachers 

 are unmarried women, who. owing to the abnormal reticence 

 which is maintained on biological subjects, especially regarding 

 matters of sex, are largely ignorant of much which they should 

 know if they are to instruct young people in the laws of life 

 and to instill into them ideals which will raise the standards of 

 marriage and parenthood. 



To many a woman teacher a course in microscopic botany has 

 come as a revelation. The healthiest mode of approach to bio- 

 logical questions and to the phenomena of sex is through the 

 study of plant and animal life. The two great factors of life, 

 heredity and environment, can here be brought before the student 

 in a wholly unobjectionable way and the analogy of human life 

 is so obvious that the principles learned will almost surely be 

 transferred in due time by the learner to the human domain. 



The courses in biology should not consist wholly of lectures, 

 but should include practical and experimental work. Obser- 

 vation and experiment even if limited to a few fundamental 

 points will be far more fruitful than a long course of didactic 

 lectures. Let the teacher-to-be observe for herself the influence 

 of external conditions in causing changes in the structures of 

 plants and animals, let her note the response of the living sub- 

 stances to heat, light, oxygen, food-substances, poisons, and 

 infectious agents and she will quickly realize the importance of 

 a well regulated environment for the welfare of human life. 

 Again, let her study pollen and ovule microscopically, observe 

 the process of plant fertilization, and the development of the 

 plant embryo, or permit her to watch frogs' eggs, fish eggs, 

 and hens' eggs, and to follow the embryos through their various 

 stages, and you have chosen the easiest way to initiate her nor- 

 mally and without shock into a knowledge of the mysteries of 



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