122 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1389 



the ideas that the writer desires to convey. 

 With reference to this course it should be 

 said that it was established upon the basis of 

 " general principles " about twenty years ago 

 when Professor Conklin was head of the de- 

 partment. The instructors concerned are there- 

 fore in hearty accord with Professor Shull's 

 efforts to extend the employment of such a 

 plan. For the past few years also a serious 

 effort has been made to apply the scientific 

 method throughout the part of the course de- 

 voted to laboratory studies and the results 

 have more than justified the efforts in this 

 direction. The laboratory work, occupying 

 more than two thirds of the time devoted 

 to the course is, consequently, presented 

 to the student in the form of a series of prob- 

 lems framed as far as is practicable upon the 

 method outlined above. 



In deciding how the course should begin a 

 number of purposes have been kept in mind. 

 An effort has been made to lessen as much as 

 possible the difficulties that students have in 

 getting started on a new subject under 

 entirely novel conditions. Contrary to the 

 rather widespread practise of beginning with 

 the cell or a protozoon, an animal is used 

 at the start which is large enough to be seen 

 without special equipment, since to get ac- 

 quainted with the compound microscope con- 

 stitutes no small task in itself. Another 

 reason for taking a larger animal is that it 

 is much more likely to fall within the range 

 of the student's experience, and, further, since 

 the student is accustomed to look at animals 

 as individual entities, it is more desirable to 

 present an entire animal than any part of it 

 such as a cell or tissue. It is an open ques- 

 tion whether it is better pedagogy to begin 

 with the simple (cell — protozoa) and proceed 

 to the complex (entire animal — metazoa) or to 

 proceed from the more familiar (entire ani- 

 mal) to the less familiar (tissues and cells). 

 As a result of their teaching experience the 

 instructors giving this course have adopted 

 the latter alternative. They are furthermore 

 in agreement with Professor Nichols when he 



Let the student learn to 'he analytic before he 

 attempts synthesis. 



In choosing the first animal it has also 

 seemed desirable to select one which is defi- 

 nite in its morphological characters and com- 

 plex enough to afford a good test of the stu- 

 dent's powers of observation. 



With the foregoing considerations in mind 

 an Arthropod, such as a grasshopper or cray- 

 fish, has frequently been chosen and used with 

 much success. At the beginning the student 

 is asked to study carefully a specimen of the 

 chosen animal and to make two pictures of it; 

 a word picture, thus permitting him to use 

 his most familiar tool of expression, his lan- 

 guage; second, a picture in the form of a 

 drawing. He is asked to organize his descrip- 

 tion carefully, make an outline of it and then 

 write it out, using the best English at his 

 command. He is asked to compare his two 

 pictures and decide which is the more ac- 

 curate: this is the problem set for him to 

 solve. Almost without exception the student 

 perceives that the drawing furnishes a much 

 more accurate picture of the animal than does 

 his description and thus some of the objec- 

 tions that students are accustomed to make 

 to the requirement of drawings are met and 

 disarmed at the very outset. 



Then through a series of problems the stu- 

 dent is asked to determine in an analytical 

 way the external anatomy of the animal, re- 

 cording his observations in the form of fully 

 labelled drawings. At the end he is asked to 

 integrate his information into an essay upon 

 the specimen as a whole animal. 



This study is followed by an exercise on 

 classification most of the material for which 

 the student collects for himself. 'Next a ver- 

 tebrate, such as a frog, is introduced to give a 

 better basis for the subject of general physi- 

 ology, which is presented primarily from the 

 standpoint of human physiology, but also with 

 reference to the animal which is being dis- 

 sected. The student is thus introduced to the 

 more general morphological and physiological 

 characteristics of living things, is brought to 

 see the application of these principles to his 

 own body and mind, and perceives the funda- 



