474 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1220 



tially the same. The differences spring 

 from differences of imagination; which go 

 back to differences of effective experience; 

 which can he expressed, on the whole, in 

 terms of relative ignorance. 



One obvious avenue of relief from the 

 general situation lies through the common 

 schools. The inertia of tradition and the 

 embarrassing difficulties inherent in the 

 complexity of the human mechanism and 

 its multiplicity of external relations can be 

 advantageously attacked by beginning 

 early in the individual life the develop- 

 iment of a biological point of view. If facts 

 iire furnished, not withheld; if teachers 

 recognize the persistent danger of standing 

 between pupils and their wholesome inter- 

 ests; if children are permitted to think 

 candidly about natural processes; if they 

 ^re encouraged to appreciate the dignity 

 ,cf naked facts, to believe that it is no dis- 

 credit to a fact that it is true ; results will 

 flow in the right direction. 



Another avenue of relief that concerns 

 us as college teachers more closely, lies 

 through the courses of zoology, especially 

 the general courses, that are being offered 

 by our colleges. If the common schools ac- 

 cept their opportunities and responsibili- 

 ties, ours are not thereby lessened. Wlia:t 

 are the functions of the colleges in this con- 

 nection? What is the nature of the mate- 

 rial that zoology offers them for their use ? 

 I shall consider the second question first. 



In the first place, zoology offers facts 

 that are of immediate practical utility in 

 a thousand ways, facts that are associated 

 commonly with the technie of vocations, 

 and facts that are neither the one nor the 

 other. There may be no fundamental dif- 

 ferences between the facts thus classified. 

 For the character of a fact can not be al- 

 tered by the accident of its immediate appli- 

 cability. In certain respects, however, the 



classes themselves differ. The first and sec- 

 ond are small, specialized and circum- 

 scribed in comparison with the much 

 larger, more diversified and expansive 

 third. They make a more limited appeal 

 to the imagination. They confine it, setting 

 limits to its flights before it has tried its 

 wings. For this reason, and this reason 

 only, I contemplate with some reserve the 

 recent mushroom growth of vocational 

 courses in our secondary schools, with the 

 substitutions they usually entail ; although, 

 regarded as protests against a certain de- 

 tachment from the concerns of everj'-day 

 life which zoology has been known to as- 

 sume in the past, they possess merit. 



However that may be, and however the 

 facts themselves may be classified, as a 

 whole they embody certain conceptions 

 that are characteristic of organic as con- 

 trasted with inorganic science ; for example, 

 the living organism, growth, development, 

 evolution, behavior, adaptability. These 

 are all vivid, dynamic conceptions. They 

 stress movement, change, the process rather 

 than the result, the activities of organisms 

 living rather than their architecture dead ; 

 in all eases, the reference of data to dy- 

 namic standards, such as the interpreta- 

 tion, for example, of structure in terms of 

 function. Thus, a cat's leg, as a collection 

 of bones and muscles, nerves and blood ves- 

 sels, lacks the significance which as a living 

 moving appendage it possesses. Yet it 

 m_ust be dissected if its beautifully coordi- 

 nated movements are to be adequately ap- 

 preciated. It must appear transparent to 

 the mind's eye. Function and structure 

 stand thus in an indispensable relation to 

 each other. But there remains this differ- 

 ence between them, that while structures 

 have no meaning apart from their activi- 

 ties, the latter apart from the former have 

 meaning without significance. Physiology 



