424 



REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 

 Table XIII. 



Scheme showing hours per week allotted to Natural Science subjects in a typical Secondary 

 School in French-speaking Switzerland, the College de Geneve. Ages 12-19. 



A good deal of information regarding Swiss Schools is contained in Die Reform der 

 hoeheren Schulen in der Schweiz, by Dr. Albert Barth. Kober C.F. Spittlers Nachfolger, 

 Basel. 1919. 



Secondaey Schools in Japan. 



In the Memorandum on the Teaching of Natural History in Schools prepared by 

 the Zoology Organisation Committee at the request of Section D of the British Association 

 (Eept. Brit. Ass. Edinburgh Meeting 1921. London. 1922) the following statement 

 occurs on page 266 : — 



' It is a curious fact that in England alone among civilised countries, a boy and 

 girl can reach the age of eighteen or nineteen years and leave school without having 

 received any school instruction in animal physiology or the natural history of animals. 

 In Japan, to take only one example out of many, the courses in the middle school 

 (fourteen to nineteen years of age) include Botany, Physiology and a two-years' 

 course in Zoology. . . . And this instruction is given not only to the few scholars that 

 are passing on to a specialised course in Science in the Universities, but to all scholars 

 without exception.' 



Brief details as to time-tables and courses of study are given in General Description 

 of Japanese Education, compiled for the Information Bureau of the Foreign Office at 

 Tokyo. 1923. 



Secondary Schools in the United States op America. 



The United States High School Curriculum is based on a system of units, each 

 of which is a year's course, complete in itself. The pupil must acquire credit for so 

 many units as entrance to University, ' but there are no fixed curricula and very 

 few required courses.' This system is very roundly condemned by the writer quoted 

 ( William S. Learned. The Quality of the Educational Process in the United States and 

 in Europe. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Bulletin 20. New 

 York. 1927), who compares it to 'a factory system of multiple unit manufacture,' 

 but it has its interest in the present connection as indicating the relative popularity 

 of individuaJ units. 



Separate Botany and Zoology units have been taught in the schools for the last 

 fifty years or so. More recently a unit of General Biology functional in outlook and 

 related to human affairs, has been recognised '^ and has proved highly popular, rapidly 



'■'' Recognised as College Entrance Examination unit in November 1915. , 



I 



