"When you hear words that are distasteful to 

 your mind, you must inquire whether they are not 

 right." CONFUCIUS 



APPENDIX A 

 EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS 



The conclusions, established on a scientific basis, which have been 

 presented in this study have a fundamental significance to the human 

 race which cannot be ignored in any system of general education. We 

 have not invited science to the discussion just for its curiosity value. 

 Science taught as a conversation piece has little place in public educa- 

 tion. Physical science taught merely to provide an understanding of 

 the gadgets of civilization is superficial. Biologic science taught as a 

 system of physiologic mechanics and classification is abortive it falls 

 into the same category as foreign language courses which ostensibly 

 are taught to provide an understanding of the culture of a particu- 

 lar people, but which usually are concluded at about the point where 

 understanding begins to be possible. Such blind alley tactics are 

 rapidly being discredited by educational philosophers. 



Science has come into this discussion because it provides facts 

 upon which can be based a broad total view and understanding of 

 man in his relationships to the universal environment. A complete 

 individual knowledge of the many sciences we have invoked is neither 

 possible nor necessary to our purpose. Furthermore, the same or 

 equally significant conclusions will be reached regardless of which 

 basic science serves as a door for entering the study of man and his 

 environment. You say they are not reached. That is because the 

 common approach to a particular science is to study that science for 

 itself alone, not to use it as a highway to citizenship. 



Why is public school science thus closed off from its great possi- 

 bilities in general education? Why does it exhibit every symptom of 

 the narrow, specialized view? Our search for the answer leads us by 

 either of two roads, the teacher or the textbook, directly into the 

 college. The teacher and the text are college products. If the colleges 

 are not giving us the tools with which to construct an adequate gen- 

 eral education in the public schools, why not ? 



Better Teacher Training? The average college of education shows 

 teachers how to teach. It does not, in too many cases, tell them what 

 1o teach. The prospective teacher is sent over to a subject matter 

 specialist in some other department, usually to the college of arts and 

 sciences, to learn something to teach. There the student who aspires 

 to teach a certain subject is shot full of it by an expert. What is 

 the nature of this expert? He holds a doctor's degree or is doing his 

 best to get one. He got his training from doctors, or instructors work- 

 ing to become doctors. This is the kernel of the situation. How do 

 these professors get to be experts. They do research. They specialize 



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