vi PREFACE. 



and that the scientific view-point shall be purely supple- 

 mentary to this. 



The author feels that the drift, whether with sound 

 reason or not, is distinctly toward the third of these atti- 

 tudes. He has much sympathy for the basal contentions 

 of its advocates. Of all sciences, our own Biology- 

 should certainly be the first to insist that its content 

 and method should be so ordered as to enable the youth 

 to secure sound and practical adjustment 

 to actual life relations and at the same 

 GRADUAL time retain adjustability. This seems to be 



C^-rr A Xir*T? 



the goal of .life itself; it should then be the 

 goal of biological teaching, since biology is the study of 

 life. We are training men and women, and not zoolo- 

 gists; we are helping candidates for life, not candidates 

 for college entrance. Nevertheless, it is necessary to 

 remember that most of our teachers are trained in the 

 older view; and even if it should be true that the best 

 ultimate course in Zoology for high schools will have, 

 as its backbone, the practical, economic, human-interest 

 phase, it is not best that we should too suddenly try 

 to make a break with our whole past. If too wide and 

 sudden a change is made in the whole spirit of our work, 

 we are liable to as chaotic a condition as has held the 

 "nature study" movement in the grades for the last 

 ten years. We need an . evolution rather than a revolu- 

 tion in our biological pedagogy. 

 A ^ This book is an effort to combine the older 



A LOMBINA- 



and the newer phases of thought among us, 



TION OF THE 3 re i 



EVOLU a 1S ottered as a partial, and yet a dis- 



tinct, step toward what the author believes 



AKY AND , 



ECONOMI a sound pedagogical and humanistic 



movement. He believes that the secondary 



