PREFACE 



IN most cases where only one of the two biological 

 branches is included in the curriculum of a secondary 

 school, botany is chosen. This is probably due not only 

 to the fact that few teachers have studied zoology, but 

 also to the difficulties incident to the teaching of the sub- 

 ject and the impractical kind of zoology to which too many 

 teachers have been introduced. In many schools the 

 college graduate has inflicted on his pupils in their lower 

 teens the zoology adapted to college students. Laborious 

 dissections, permitting the details of structure to be noted 

 and wearisome drawings to be made, may be of value to 

 the few, but render injustice to many. 



The plan of teaching the biological sciences lately in 

 many schools has sacrificed the acquisition of important 

 information and the training of the powers of reflection 

 and expression to the cultivation of the powers of observa- 

 tion and the teaching of drawing. The average individual 

 cares little about the names of the parts of the crayfish's 

 legs or the veins in the wings of insects, but he must be 

 stupid indeed who is not interested hi the interdependence 

 of species, the part played by insects in the transmission of 

 disease, the marvelous life history of the creatures with 

 which he comes into daily contact, and the meaning of the 

 animal architecture so common in the crowded city as well 

 as by the unfrequented wayside. It is far more important 



5 



255377 



