1 62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



different sciences, and the relative expense of equipment which the 

 different sciences demand. Finally to be mentioned as a powerful 

 factor is the recency of introduction of the various sciences to the 

 course. All subjects shown in the high school course have entered it 

 from above, having been handed down from the colleges, and tend to 

 gravitate from the latter part of the course toward the earlier, until 

 they find their supposed level in youthful capacity. Thus chemistry, 

 the most recent introduction, has probably not yet exhausted its down- 

 ward tendency. 



Yet the foregoing influences are all more or less superficial and 

 transient. Deeper than them all is a rational motive that has some- 

 times found its expression through them and should ultimately control 

 the sequence of science in the high school. 



With the young the learning process involves a great deal of mus- 

 cular reaction. This necessity of motor expression diminishes with 

 advancing years and the accumulation of an interpretive stock of motor 

 experience with things. The size of the muscles involved in these 

 reactions is an index of the stage of development of the learner. And 

 since the accuracy and promptness of every muscle seem capable of 

 unlimited improvement by education, they, too, indicate stages of devel- 

 opment. On final analysis, the correct gradation and sequence of all 

 rational school subjects will probably be found to conform to muscular 

 development. The difficulties in high school sciences mostly inhere 

 in the formulae with which the teacher short-circuits his explanations 

 or the verbiage with which he covers his ignorance. Whatever is defi- 

 nite is easy. Uncertain or confused things, only, are difficult and 

 anything worth knowing may be taught the adolescent by a competent 

 teacher. 



Applying this test of motor adjustments, a solution of the problem 

 of high school science will at the same time determine the correct 

 sequence of the different phases of agriculture in the schools. All of 

 the subjects involve the use of both the large and the small muscles. 

 Subjects demanding more use of the finer muscles go later in the course 

 than those involving more use of the coarser. Those requiring skill 

 and accuracy of the larger muscles may often have an early or late 

 treatment, or both. First-year high school students are familiar with 

 or may make all of the adjustments demanded by such work as geog- 

 raphy, soils, stream action, farm machines and elementary physics. 

 Tillage, the study of the corn plant and ear, the morphology of root, 

 stem and leaf, and budding, grafting, pruning and spraying involve 

 motor adjustments appropriate to the grammar grades. The examina- 

 tion of cells, fibro-vascular bundles, and tlie stamens and pistils of most 

 plants, and the making of biological drawings, work which exercises the 

 finer muscles of accommodation, the preparation of slides and the 



