454 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LI. No. 1323 



not, and generally are not intended to be, 

 adequate presentations of general biology. 

 On the contrary these courses are commonly 

 admirable introductions to the §ort of botany 

 or zoology taught in their respective institu- 

 tions. They are open to criticism from two 

 directions. In the first place they contain 

 much that is of little interest or importance 

 to the general culture student and they usually 

 involve an excessive amount of detailed lab- 

 oratory work for this type of student. "We do 

 not mean to assert that a thorough training 

 in the laboratory is not good for any sort of 

 student but merely to point out the absurdity 

 of compelling him to acquire a different one 

 for each field of study if he is to become a 

 really well educated man. Not unnaturally 

 the majority of students, under a system of 

 relative freedom of election, decline to at- 

 tempt to secure a general education at this 

 exorbitant price. 



On the other hand these coiu-ses are seri- 

 ously deficient, from this point of view, in 

 what they omit. This is more serious than 

 the inclusions, for one may reasonably be vidll- 

 ing to pay an excessive price for a worthwhile 

 article but he can hardly be expected to be 

 satisfied to pay for what he ardently wishes 

 and really needs and then not get it, even 

 after being overcharged. 



I'urthermore this criticism comes not alone 

 from the general culture student but also 

 from one of the largest groups of biologists, 

 namely, the medical students. The tandem 

 arrangement has never been satisfactory to 

 them, and now, with the increasing pressure 

 upon their time for technical zoological 

 courses, such as comparative anatomy, be- 

 comes virtually impossible. The present situ- 

 ation is that the prospective naedical student 

 takes no botany at all, or does so only at the 

 sacrifice of valuable and important non-scien- 

 tific study, of which he obtains at best far too 

 little. And furthermore, whether he studies 

 botany or not, he goes through his course 

 without having had formal opportimity to 

 acquire a broad conception of life itself and 

 the interrelations of living things with one 

 another and with the inorganic world. 



What is General Biology. — To the writers 

 it seems clear that it does not consist in some 

 zoology and some botany, whether adminis- 

 tered in the old-fashioned mixture, improperly 

 called general biology, or in the more modern 

 separate dose method of consecutive courses. 

 To us it seems axiomatic that it must have 

 a much broader outlook and that it must in a 

 general way include somewhat the following 

 topics: (1) The structures and functions 

 common to all living things; (2) The dis- 

 tinguishing characteristics of plants as such 

 and their function in the world; (3) The 

 essential characters of animals; (4) The inter- 

 relations of plants and animals with one an- 

 other and with inorganic nature, with special 

 reference to competition, survival, injury, 

 death, disease, and decomposition; (5) The 

 processes of nature whereby matter and energy 

 are so conserved and transformed as to permit 

 the ceaseless and indefinitely continuous round 

 of life. To be more specific this means a 

 study of: (a) Protoplasm — its structure and 

 functions, cells, cell division, colonial and 

 multicellular organisms, gi-owth and differ- 

 entiation; (b) the role of green plants in the 

 transformation of the free energy of sunlight 

 and simple inorganic compounds into complex 

 energy-containing organic compounds to be 

 used as foods — i. e., as sources of energy and 

 building materials — by animals and non-green 

 plant cells; (c) how these foods are used by 

 animals in growth and work and how they 

 produce wastes, eventually to be used again 

 by plants; (d) the sensitivity of protoplasm 

 and its role in relating the plant and animal 

 to their environment; (e) growth and repro- 

 duction; (/) heredity and evolution; (g) dis- 

 ease and death; (h) decomposition, putrefac- 

 tion, and fermentation and other processes in 

 the soil that render organic materials again 

 usable by green plants; (0 the transforma- 

 tions and conservation of matter and energy 

 as exemplified in the carbon, nitrogen, and 

 other organic cycles. 



Administrative DifficuUies. — ^It seems prob- 

 able that much of the prejudice against the 

 " General Biology " course has actually had 

 its origin in the inter-departmental friction 



