74 THE THIRD YEARBOOK 



equivalent value in the studies that he requires his pupils to make 

 of the tree, of the grasshopper, of the snake, of the crayfish, or of 

 all of them together, he is not so ready with an answer. I have 

 frequently made some interesting tests with my pupils which indi- 

 cate that this indefiniteness of purpose, or possibly a lowered pur- 

 pose, in teaching has its effect upon them. When they are asked 

 for specific instances of lessons that they feel have made distinct 

 and direct contributions to their character, they almost invariably cite 

 examples that fall within the humanities. They say that this or 

 that lesson has made them distinctly stronger. It has made them 

 more certain of themselves in times of temptation than they other- 

 wise likely would have been ; that the withdrawal of such lessons 

 from their fund of experience would be to them a real and specific 

 loss. On the other hand, it is rare to find any student who has 

 had high-school science who will attach anything like the same 

 value to the lessons he has had upon the grasshopper, the earth- 

 worm, the beetle, the dandelion, or the oak tree. They are generally 

 ready to say, still further, that, so far as they can see, these lessons 

 might be blotted out from their experience without affecting in the 

 least their status as moral beings. 



I certainly have no desire to overstate the case, but I am decid- 

 edly of the opinion that we have here the real reason why science 

 has such a tremendous struggle to maintain itself in the curriculum. 

 It matters not how ignorant the teacher may be, he generally has, 

 at least, vague notions that it is his chief business to turn out people 

 of good moral character. He therefore devotes whatever energy and 

 skill he may possess to the presentation of those subjects which, as 

 he has been taught, lead to that end, and everything else is left to 

 become the incident, or rather the accident, of the curriculum. 



That we may see what has brought this state of things to pass, 

 it is only necessary to enumerate briefly the stock reasons that are 

 usually given for the teaching of science. In the pre-evolutionary 

 period, all things in nature were considered almost entirely as having 

 a peculiar relation to man. They were classified broadly into the 

 useful and the useless. In the former there was always a strong 

 selfish interest : toward the latter there were feelings of indifference, 

 if not positive hostility. 



With the advent of Darwin's Origin of Species, a new interest 

 was aroused that, for the popular mind, was derived chiefly from 



