PREFACE. 



Teachers of biology are pretty well agreed that the 

 matter and method of our secondary courses in the 

 life sciences should be determined by the needs, capa- 

 bilities, and life interests of the pupils rather than by 

 any mature conception of what constitutes a " balanced 

 course" in biology. This is to say that the problems 

 of the maker of such a course are pedagogical rather 

 than biological. And yet it is important that the sub- 

 ject should be handled, if possible, in such a way as to 

 give a true and not a distorted conception of biology. 



The most distinctive movement of the 



ECONOMIC , L ., .. , . . 



^ last decade, in respect to the teaching of 



Zoology, is the increased insistence on the 

 practical and utilitarian side of animal life and animal 

 relations in our secondary school courses. It is con- 

 tended that there is so much of biology directly related 

 -,- to the pupil's life and activities that these aspects of 

 ' the subject should be emphasized in the peoples' schools, 

 and should replace more and more the evolutionary 

 .^ and scientific conceptions which have dominated the 

 c-) books of the past. 



As the result of these facts, there are to- 



J_3l VERSTTY 



day three classes of teachers and courses 

 ^ IN COURSES. , - , N ,, 



represented among us: (i) those present- 

 ing pure morphological and physiological (evolutionary) 

 zoology, with little reference to the economic aspects; 

 (2) those who make the scientific or evolutionary view 

 primary, and yet supplement this liberally with the 

 economic emphasis; and (3) those who insist that the 

 approach and the emphasis shall be primarily economic, 



