FOREWORD 



THIRTY years ago the study of science was fighting for a 

 position of academic respectability much as the various special 

 sciences are fighting for the same position to-day. Science 

 edged its way in through the popular fourteen weeks in physics 

 or chemistry, which afforded a very valuable scientific inter- 

 pretation of the immediate environment of the pupils. But 

 when the colleges agreed to accept science for entrance on 

 the same basis as mathematics and the foreign languages, they 

 prescribed the content of the science courses and totally changed 

 their character. The new syllabi were determined by college 

 professors who had in mind only the needs of the pupils des- 

 tined to go to college. 



For these reasons, without real blame being attributable to 

 any one, the proper aim of the study of science in the high 

 schools was defeated. Disturbers of the educational peace 

 then pointed to the fact that approximately only five per cent 

 of the high school pupils go to college. They questioned the 

 dictum that the best education for the pupil preparing for 

 college is the best education for the pupil going immediately 

 into active life. It was pointed out that everybody who took 

 science was being forced to study a great deal of pure theory 

 that could not be connected with practical life without much 

 subsequent study. 



The first movement toward a reformation of this unfortunate 

 condition was the organization of short courses in biology for 

 the first year of the high school. When this science was 

 studied for its human relations, an immediate change in the 



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