Maech 26, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



313 



putting the non-morphological phases of zool- 

 ogy into their lectures and recitations. But 

 the laboratory work has inevitably put an 

 over-emphasis on the morphological side, and 

 may even have over-emphasized the physio- 

 logical. The seven branches of the science 

 need not, of course, be treated equally. Mor- 

 phology deserves a gTeater share than any of 

 the others, for each of the divisions is partly 

 morphological. But a course on morphology 

 alone (or nearly alone) can scarcely be repre- 

 sentative. Unprotesting use of the type 

 course means either that the teacher regards 

 the content of zoology as Protozoa, Porifera, 

 CcElenterata, etc., or that he is satisfied to 

 administer an unbalanced ration to his 

 students. 



Quite independent of the foregoing con- 

 sideration of the content of zoology is the 

 question of unity of the first course. Whether 

 the type course or the topic course be em- 

 ployed, that course should be imified. It 

 should proceed step by step, one thing leading 

 up to and necessarily following others. Unity 

 has not been ignored by those who employ the 

 type method, but they have justified their 

 sourse by the evolutionary series which the 

 animal scale is supposed to present. When 

 the animal series was thought to be single 

 and continuous, that was a fair assumption. 

 But this notion of the phylogenetic tree has 

 been largely abandoned, it is recognized that 

 the animal series is a disjointed one. At 

 least if there are connections everywhere, 

 they are so attenuated in places that even a 

 superior student is unable to detect them. 

 The step from an echinoderm to an annelid 

 is not an easy one, nor the step from a mol- 

 lusk to an arthropod. 



The lack of unity consequent upon the 

 employment of type dissections has long been 

 recognized, and has led to the widespread 

 notion, referred to above, that something is 

 vsrrong with the beginning courses in biology. 

 One can not converse long with teachers of 

 biology who are interested in the pedagogy 

 of their work, without encountering the 

 question, what is to be done about the begin- 

 ning course? Sometimes the unrest is vague, 



sometimes it is not recognized that lack of 

 luiity is the fundamental defect, but in few 

 quarters is the present course regarded as 

 satisfactory. 



Various proposals have been made for 

 remedying the defect. One plan ofPered by a 

 botanist for the beginning course in botany 

 is frankly to make the course practical, utili- 

 tarian. Since there may readily be a counter- 

 part of this plan on the zoological side, it is 

 worth considering. The author of this pro- 

 posal does not recognize lack of unity as the 

 thing to be overcome. He would, for ex- 

 ample, study wheat: where it is grown, the 

 proper kinds of soil, its uses, its markets, etc. ; 

 then potatoes, their soils, geography, indus- 

 trial uses, diseases and so on. However 

 desirable a course in agricultvire may be, 

 little can be said for the above plan with 

 regard to its unity. One plant may, it is 

 true, unify soils and markets after a fashion, 

 but the gap between wheat and potatoes can 

 hardly be bridged in the same arbitrary man- 

 ner. The proposed course is simply a type 

 course of another kind, the types being no 

 more closely connected than are the taxo- 

 nomic groups of organisms to which they 

 belong. 



One experienced teacher of zoology proposes 

 that the history of the development of the 

 biological sciences be employed. This teacher 

 has detected the fundamental defect of the 

 present course, and his plan is avowedly an 

 attempt to secure unity. His plan could be 

 successful if the historical development of the 

 science were steadily from the simple to the 

 related complex. If one could learn the his- 

 tory of the rise of a subject by the same steps 

 as he learned the content of the subject, then 

 history would be a unifying study. But were 

 that done in zoology, one would study the 

 development of the chick before he learned 

 of the existence of cells : and he would know 

 of the parthenogenesis of the honey bee before 

 he knew the existence of germ cells. Whereas 

 theoretically simple things should be dis- 

 covered before complex ones, many circum- 

 stances, such as the lack of microscopes, has 

 prevented that order from being followed. 



