March 13, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



379 



be tested thus : how does it react on the al- 

 ready ascertained body of facts? Does it 

 essentially modify what we have come to 

 regard as fundamental concepts? The an- 

 swer to these questions will go far in deter- 

 mining whether a new fact or theory shall 

 find a place in a general course. Judged 

 by this criterion, paleobotany has won for 

 itself a place in any course where the rela- 

 tionships between plants constitutes one 

 of the fundamental principles. Not that 

 paleobotany needs to be introduced for- 

 mally under that designation, but fossil 

 plants may now be dealt with in an evolu- 

 tionary scheme in the same way as existing 

 ones, and our view of the plant kingdom as 

 a whole is correspondingly broadened. To 

 quote D. H. Scott: "Our whole conception 

 of two at least of the great divisions of the 

 Vegetable Kingdom — the Pteridophyta and 

 the Gymnosperms — and of their mutual re- 

 lations, is already profoundly influenced 

 by the study of the ancient forms." In a 

 similar way recent progress in plant anat- 

 omy has so far established a new point of 

 view that its results must be incorporated 

 in all but the most elementary presentation 

 of the subject of morphology. 



But there are other ways in which a new 

 topic may justify its claim for insertion in 

 a general course. The new facts ma,y have 

 such intrinsic and fundamental importance 

 that they may fitly find place in a course, 

 although not reacting to any considerable 

 extent on the older material. In this way 

 the leading facts concerning inheritance 

 may justify the place they hold in some 

 general courses. A real difficulty in includ- 

 ing this topic arises from the fact that 

 freshmen lack the antecedent training in 

 cytology and embryologj'- which is desirable 

 before one can really grasp the principles 

 of heredity. 



A principle which must not be lost sight 

 of in deciding for or against a new topic is 



its pedagogic value. New subjects suffer in 

 this respect from their lack of organiza- 

 tion; they consist largely of a number of 

 interesting and significant observations, 

 but these are at first unrelated, and there- 

 fore of inferior value for teaching pur- 

 poses. A good example is seen in the mass 

 of facts which is accumulating as the result 

 of the activity of workers along Mendelian 

 lines. It has also been noticed that specu- 

 lation has run far in advance of these facts 

 — an observation which carries its own 

 moral. Plant ecology is another branch of 

 the subject which lacks organization. As 

 Cowles has said, until recently ecology had 

 no fundamental concepts. Moreover some 

 of the workers who have rushed into this 

 field have not hesitated to provide a plausi- 

 ble explanation for every phenomenon, 

 with the result that careful work has been 

 discredited along with the hasty. We 

 should beware of the attitude of mind 

 which leads us to explain everything. We 

 have abundant reason to consider this mat- 

 ter of pedagogic value, for we must realize 

 that sciences and especially the biological 

 sciences are still on trial as subjects suit- 

 able for schools and colleges, and that some 

 disappointment has been manifested at the 

 results following their introduction. All 

 sciences still sufi'er from a lack of the defi- 

 nite organization which has long been pos- 

 sessed by the classics and mathematics. 

 Biology is indulgently tolerated by the fol- 

 lowers of the more exact sciences; in the 

 words of one of my engineering colleagues, 

 "biology is largely an observational sub- 

 ject." Hence we do well to be sparing in 

 our introduction of new and unorganized 

 branches of our subject. We are in danger 

 of sacrificing a training in exact thinking, 

 such as is provided by comparative mor- 

 phology, and gaining only intellectual 

 haziness. That this is a prevalent and 

 serious defect in American education is 



