ON ANIMAL BIOLOGY IN THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM. 397 



Animal Biology in the School Curriculum.— ^e^ori of Committee 

 (Prof. R. D. Laurie, Chairman and Secretary ; Mr. H. W. Ballance, 

 Dr. Kathleen E. Carpenter, Prof. W. J. Dakin, Mr. 0. H. Latter, 

 Prof. E. W. MacBride, Miss M. McNicol, Miss A. J. Prothero and 

 Prof. H. M. Tattersall) appointed to consider and report upon the 

 position of Animal Biology in the School Curriculum and matters 

 related thereto. 



CONTENTS. 



PAQE 



On Biology Teaching in Schools ......... 397 



Outline Principles and General Scope of the Syllabus in Biology for Pupils of II to 

 16 years .......•• 



Allotment of Time ........ 



Appendix I. Obtaining of Specimens . . . . . 



Appendix II. Books suggested as suitable for School Libraries . 

 Appendix III. Quotations from recent Government Documents . 

 Appendix IV. Current Syllabuses of Biology, Botany, and Zoology 

 Appendix V. Statistics relating to Candidates entering for Biology, Botany, and 

 Zoology in School Certificate, Matriculation, and Higher Certificate Examina- 

 tions in England and Wales during the ten years from 1918 to 1927 inclusive . 407 

 Appendix VI. Position of Biological Teaching in Secondary Schools in other 



Countries ....... ^ ..• • 415 



Acknowledgments .......■••• 427 



Summary .......•••••• 427 



Recommendations ......••••• 428 



References .......■•■■■ 428 



(See, further, Appendix VII, Suggestions for Schemes of Biological Study 

 in the Secondary School, p. 689.) 



399 

 400 

 401 

 401 

 404 

 407 



ON BIOLOGY TEACHING IN SCHOOLS. 



It is scarcely necessary at this time to labour the point that biological teaching 

 should have some place in the education of our children ; the principle is now very 

 generally admitted, even though there remain a number of schools in which such 

 teaching is limited to a little desultory ' Nature-study ' in the lower forms. The 

 question of the amount and scope of biological study to be recommended, however, 

 requires careful attention and involves some serious consideration of the already 

 much-worn topic of the aims and limits of school education. It would be tedious to 

 repeat even a few of the many definitions in vogue — suffice it to remark that human 

 education may be considered under two aspects, the vocational and the cultural, and 

 that of these we hold that the latter is by far the most important in our schools, since 

 (in training pupils of under sixteen years of age at least) the aim should be, first and 

 foremost, to ensure even and healthy development of the pupil's powers, and second, 

 to lay the foundation of a wide range of intellectual interests which may ' increase the 

 capacity for imaginative experience.' But this should not be taken to exclude a 

 ' realistic ' or ' pre-vocational ' element, which may be introduced with great advantage 

 to the cultural aspect of the work, stimulating interest by linking the school life to life 

 in the larger world for which it is a preparation. 



The growing plant or animal in favourable natural surroundings is ' educated ' to 

 even and healthy development by the stimulating action of the various factors in its 

 environment ; it is one of the great difficulties in human education to select from the 

 overwhelming complexities of the social and physical environment of civilised man 

 such factors as may best afford a balanced stimulation. The guiding principle in 

 selection should be the appeal to nature ; the main endeavour, to encourage the 

 development of the natural interests of the pupil in the order in which they naturally 

 show themselves. 



From first to last the growing child is fundamentally interested in the natural 

 world of living creatures about him and in his own physical relations to the general 

 life — a second interest, a concern for his own relation to the social scheme of human 



