264 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 
no improvement in the schools, and there are strong reasons for believing that 
the situation is steadily becoming worse. 
It is true, as Captain ‘Scott said, that ‘they encourage it (i.e. Natural 
History) in some schools,’ but in a great many of these the encouragement that 
is given to boys or girls with a taste for the subject and a determination to 
pursue it amounts to little more than toleration. They are allowed tc make 
collections of butterflies and shells, or even to keep a few live pets under 
conditions that are usually unfavourable for a healthy existence, and in some 
cases there are prizes or awards for collections or observations made in the 
holidays. But the most lamentable thing about it is that there are so few 
masters or mistresses, and these only in some of the larger schools, whose 
education and training enable them to give any sound guidance or assistance to 
boys or girls in their study of Animal Life. 
It does not need many years of experience as a teacher in a University to 
discover that the graduates who have taken a degree with Honours in Zoology 
are not in demand for masterships in secondary schools, and it is only on rare 
occasions that they succeed in getting good posts. 
There is a demand for botanists, and apparently the demand is increasing ; 
but there can be no doubt that, at the present time, botanists who can give 
instruction in two other subjects such as Chemistry and Mathematics, or 
Chemistry and Physics, have a better chance of making a successful application 
for teaching posts in secondary schools than the botanists who have also had a 
good training in Zoology. 
The effect of this neglect of the teaching of Animal Biology in the schools 
is reflected in the Universities, in which we find large classes of students 
attending the higher courses of introduction in Biology and very small classes 
attending the corresponding courses in Zoology. Students coming up to the 
Universities from our secondary schools naturally suppose that it will be to 
their advantage to continue the study of subjects in which they have already 
received some preliminary introduction, and the longer they have remained 
at school after reaching the Matriculation stage the less is their inclination to 
start a new subject. Moreover, students in deciding upon a career at the 
Universities must be influenced, in most cases, by the opportunities the career 
offers for earning a living when they have graduated. 
It is not surprising, therefore, that our boys and girls, having received no 
systematic instruction whatever on the animal side of living organisms at school, 
and finding that the study of Zoology offers very few opportunities, under our 
present system, for obtaining positions as teachers, either in schools or in 
Universities, very seldom choose Zoology as a subject of University study. 
There is, indeed, in this respect a vicious circle in our educational system: on — 
the one hand, the masters and mistresses in our schools, the members of the 
governing bodies, and indeed His Majesty’s school inspectors, with very rare 
exceptions, almost entirely ignorant of the first principles of Biological Science, 
and therefore inclined to discourage the subject in the schools; and, on the 
other hand, the Universities unable, for many reasons, to attract sufficient 
numbers of students to the courses in Zoology and Animal Physiology even to 
the standard of an ordinary degree. 
One can.understand that the masters and mistresses of schools, troubled with 
the multiplicity of subjects and the expense of scientific laboratories, should be 
inclined to welcome the discouragement of another science subject, but it is 
astounding that any body of educational experts, asked to consider the educa- 
tional needs of the country, could issue such a report in respect to Zoology as 
that published by the Secondary Schools Examination Commission under the — 
authority of the Board of Education.1 The report in question has reference to 
the first examinations only, that is to say, to e€xaminations corresponding to 
the standard of the Senior Local Examinations of the Cambridge University 
Syndicate or the Matriculation Examinations of the Northern Universities Joint 
Matriculation Board, examinations which are usually taken by boys and girls of 
sixteen to seventeen years of age. 
1 Secondary Schools Examinations Council.—Report of the Investigations of 
the First Examinations. Subjects Reports, Group III., p. 10. H.M. Stationery 
Office. 1919. Price 4d. : 
