316 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 
whole and undivided,’ and ‘ General Science will not be successful unless 
it is treated as a whole.’ 
In 1925 the Board of Education issued a report of an inquiry carried out 
by their Inspectorate on the conditions affecting science teaching in a number 
of large urban secondary boys’ schools. It pointed out that the recommen- 
dations of the Prime Minister’s Committee of 1918, on the desirability of 
some elementary teaching of biology as a part of the normal curriculum of 
boys’ schools, had produced, so far, practically no effect on the science 
syllabuses in those schools. 
In 1926 the Hadow Report on the ‘ Education of the Adolescent.’ 
suggested ‘ That most schemes for courses in elementary science in modern 
schools, central schools, and in senior classes of elementary schools might 
be grouped round a simple syllabus consisting of : 
‘(a) The chemical and physical properties of air, water, and some of the 
commoner elements and their compounds, and elements of 
meteorology, and astronomy, based on simple observations, and 
the extraction of metals. 
‘(6) A carefully graduated course of instruction in elementary physics 
and simple mechanics, abundantly illustrated by means of easy 
experiments in light, heat, sound, and the various methods of 
production and application of electricity. 
‘(c) A broad outline of the fundamental principles of biology describing 
the properties of living matter, including food, the processes of 
reproduction and respiration, methods of. assimilation in plants, 
the action of bacterial organisms and the like. 
‘(d) Instruction in elementary physiology and hygiene based on lessons 
in biology.’ 
It contained, on page 223, the following recommendations : 
‘(x) As a general rule, in country schools the science syllabus both for 
boys and girls might be largely based on biological interests, the 
study of elementary physics and chemistry being subsidiary but 
arranged so as to supply the indispensable foundation for a 
course in elementary biology with special reference to its bearing 
on horticulture and agriculture. 
‘(2) Science courses for girls in modern schools and in senior classes should 
in their later stages frequently have a biological trend. . . .. The 
work should not be confined to botany, as. the study of simple 
forms of animal life can, under a wise and skilful teacher, be made 
an admirable means of widening and disciplining the pupil’s sym- 
pathies, and giving her broad hygienic ideals and a knowledge of 
nature which may increase her happiness and efficiency as a human 
being. 
‘(3) Instruction in elementary physiology and hygiene developing out 
of the lessons in elementary biology should be given to all boys 
and girls in Modern Schools and Senior Classes... Such instruction 
should be largely the practical outline of a study of elementary 
biology, treated, not as a series of classifications but as the study 
of the development of form and function in suitable types of plant 
and animal life, leading up toa study of how the human body is 
built up and how it works. Such instruction in biology and 
elementary physiology, if properly carried out, might well provide 
the basis for a right attitude to many social problems.’ 
