PREFACE 



The chief interest in Secondary School science, which 

 for a long time was concentrated upon the later years of 

 the course, has recently been shifted to the work of the 

 first year. The leading reason for this is the conviction, 

 which is rapidly becoming general, that the first science 

 of the High School should be fundamental to the entire 

 field of science and should not be any one of the special 

 sciences. It is hard to see how Physiography, Physiology, 

 and Biology, the usual subjects of the early High School 

 years, can be taught satisfactorily unless the pupil has 

 previously acquired the elementary physical and chemical 

 conceptions which underlie Physiography, Physiology, 

 and Biology. A proof that this need is felt is the fact 

 that many teachers of first-year science, no matter what 

 their subjects may be called, find themselves obliged, 

 even now, to give a large part of their class time to the 

 presentation of fundamental physical and chemical ideas. 



The problem involved in the proper preparation of 

 pupils for the study of Physiography and the biological 

 sciences cannot be solved by the transfer of Physics and 

 Chemistry, as formal subjects, to the first year of the 

 High School curriculum. The cause lies both in the 

 difficulty of the subjects themselves and also in the high 

 development which these sciences have reached in 

 Secondary Schools. For Physics and Chemistry are 

 now taught in Secondary Schools in a way and with an 



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