158 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE SEQUENCE OF SCIENCES IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 



By JOSIAH main 

 hays, kansas 



OE all the questions to which educational committees and journals 

 have been devoted, the problem of what the high school sciences 

 shall be, and the order in which they shall be given, shows least progress 

 toward final agreement. The two phases, what they shall be, and 

 where each shall go, are so related that they can not be considered 

 separately, for while we are fixing the one, we find that we have forced 

 the other out of place. The problem is complicated by the introduction 

 of a third unknown factor of how the sciences shall be affected by the 

 introduction into the high school of industrial subjects, such as agricul- 

 ture, which includes many applications of science. And it should be 

 stated that no debate of this subject can be very profitable that does not 

 include in the premises an agreement as to what sciences should be 

 undertaken below the high school. 



High school mathematics has a logical sequence that admits of little 

 variation. History has a chronological sequence which must be ob- 

 served, at least within its larger units; and literature has a genetic 

 sequence which finds its counterpart in the development of the child. 

 The science group, on the contrary, is split into distinct sciences, each 

 of which in the hands of its specialist and advocate contends for the 

 place of vantage in the latter part of the course, where all the others 

 may contribute to its dignity by preparing its way and making straight 

 its paths. Thus, for example, botany and chemistry are each politely 

 sa3dng to the other, " after you." Meanwhile the result of this internal 

 disagreement is to break the unity of science, thus greatly impairing 

 the value of each division, while weakening the ability of the whole 

 group to properly assert itself in the larger claims of the several groups. 



The " unity of science " implies a dependence between different sci- 

 ences which will usually be found to be mutual and argues equally well 

 forward or backward. One method of compromising conflicting claims 

 for precedence is to divide a science into two portions, the elementary 

 to be given in the first year, or earlier, as an introductory science, and 

 the advanced phase placed in the last year of the course. This method 

 is specially suited to such a science as physics, whose rapid growth in 

 recent years has accumulated more subject-matter than the average high 

 school can properly treat in a year. Such a proposition is suggested 



