PHYSIOLOGY AS A SUBJECT OF GENERAL EDUCATION 475 



figure, to say nothing of the care and attention that has been expended 

 which cannot be expressed in terms of money. What owner of a Rolls 

 Royce worth £1,500 would put it in charge of a person who, though he 

 could drive it, knew nothing of its make-up ? 



This audience will, I feel sure, agree that some biological teaching is a 

 necessity, but may have different views as to what is the best approach. 

 Should it be through general biology or through physiology and more 

 specifically human physiology ? Either approach in the hands of a properly 

 qualified teacher will be of value, but my own view (perhaps because I am 

 a physiologist) is that given teachers equally qualified the physiological 

 approach is the better. We shall hear more of this from Dr. Magee and 

 Prof. Garry. 



The value of the teaching of physiology in schools is two-fold — there is 

 the interest of the subject itself and there is its practical value. A certain 

 amount of curiosity as to the workings of the body is natural to children, 

 and one wonders why some simple physiology has not been universally 

 taught in schools. Of course, hygiene has been introduced, but too often 

 it has been taught in an empirical fashion, without the physiological basis 

 which gives the reasons for the habits to be inculcated, and children are 

 definitely reasoning beings. I sometimes think that the failure to teach 

 physiology in the schools and to teach the teachers physiology in the colleges 

 and universities springs from a failure to recognise one of its greatest claims 

 to be included, that it is a subject that deals with the normal and with the 

 healthy. It has been so much bound up with medicine — for which, of course, 

 it is an essential and fundamental study — that, in its application to the 

 understanding of disease, its value as a science of health and normality has 

 been overlooked. Certainly, it is a subject well worth teaching for its own 

 sake ; it gives scope for stimulation of the sentiments of wonder and 

 admiration without which life is a much less interesting affair. Properly 

 taught it gives excellent practice in reasoning ; from given facts a working 

 hypothesis has to be evolved if advance is to be made. It is a science 

 peculiarly alive not only because it deals with life and living, but because it 

 is continually growing and so gives a valuable concept of a fundamental 

 aspect of scientific study — of evolution. 



There are, too, adventure and romance in abundance in the stories of its 

 great discoveries and discoverers. 



In view of all this why is it that physiology has not been universally 

 taught ? Evidently physiologists are not good advertisers of their wares. 

 Physiological material and discoveries made use of in other sections gain 

 wide publicity. We have had two examples even in this meeting. Colour 

 blindness for example discussed in Section J has been much reported — 

 though colour blindness dealt with by a physiologist who has contributed 

 considerably to its study gained little space in the press. ' Conditioned 

 reflexes,' a subject first described and elucidated by the great physiologist, 

 Pavlov, again achieves publicity when referred to in another section ! 



Another point is possibly that there are not enough properly trained 

 teachers available in schools to deal with this subject, and therefore 

 authorities and teachers, being afraid of it, seem to be inclined to think it is 

 not there. Those who have had opportunities of teaching physiology in 

 forward-looking schools, know that children find it an interesting subject. 



In the press, generally, the same attitude is seen. In the very abundant 

 reports of Mr. Wells' Presidential Address to the Section of Education, 

 columns are devoted to his criticisms of history teaching. Practically no 

 paper mentions that among the subjects he thought must be included in 

 any enlightened school was physiology. Finally arises the question as to 



