GENERAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS 315 
in the schools containing Advanced Courses in Science Subjects developed 
considerably under their influence. It might have been expected that the 
existence of specialised courses in the top forms would have left the science 
staff free to devise a General Science course covering the years between the 
years 12 and 16, based in the main on the needs of that large majority of the 
pupils who leave school on reaching the latter age. Unfortunately this does 
not appear to have been the case ; on the contrary, there has been a tendency 
to frame the science course with a view to covering as much ground as 
possible in the subjects of the Advanced Course, and specialisation has 
spread down the school. 
A report was published by the Prime Minister’s Committee on ‘ Natural 
Science in Education’ in 1918 (reprinted in 1927). It stressed the need 
to broaden the basis of science work in secondary schools, saying : 
‘Some knowledge of the facts of the life of plants and animals should 
form a regular part of the teaching in every secondary school. . . . The 
main facts as to the relation of plants and animals to their surroundings, 
and the changes in the material and in the energy involved in life and growth 
should form part of a well-balanced school course.’ 
The same report deals in some detail with various conditions affecting 
the teaching of science, such as the influence of examinations, the supply, 
qualifications and training of teachers, university requirements and 
laboratory accommodation, and says : 
‘The want of teachers with wider scientific qualifications is at present 
the real difficulty in the introduction of biology into school work.’ 
In a summary of the principal conclusions of this committee the following 
are worth quoting, as they refer to the science course recommended for 
pupils of ages 12 to 16: 
‘The science work for pupils under 16 should be planned as a self- 
contained course, and should include besides physics and chemistry some 
study of plant and animal life. . . . More attention should be directed to 
those aspects of the sciences which bear directly on the objects and ex- 
periences of everyday life.’ 
By 1920 there was a rapidly growing opinion that biology is a necessary 
element in all school science, and that neither botany nor zoology as separate 
subjects could take its place. In most girls’ schools botany had long been 
a recognised subject of the curriculum. Only in comparatively few boys’ 
schools had biology been given any serious consideration. Natural history 
of a very elementary type sometimes formed the early stages of a science 
course, but it was, more often than not, relegated to voluntary work out of 
school hours as part of the work of the Natural History Society. 
~ In 1924 the committee of the Science Masters’ Association again attacked 
the problem in their publication General Science. In order that there 
should be no misunderstanding as to the meaning of the title, the authors 
‘expressly ‘ consider that, in any well-balanced course, Biology with Human 
Physiology and Hygiene is entitled to about one-quarter ’ of the total time 
@iven to the science course as a whole. The pamphlet has helped to focus 
‘attention upon the need for reform in school science, it has encouraged 
teachers fortunately placed as regards freedom of action to draw up their 
Own courses, to make trial of them and to give others the benefits of their 
‘experiences. The revised edition, published in 1932, has two specimen 
‘syllabuses, and suggestions for practical work, especially with respect to 
‘the biological aspect of the course. In General Science it is especially 
‘claimed that ‘ the whole essence of General Science lies not in the syllabus, 
but in the interpretation of it. . . . It must not be merely bits of specialist 
science. . . . General Science aims at unity,’ to ‘ be conceived as something 
