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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 792 



to our nature-study experts in their efforts 

 to develop a worthy system of nature study 

 in the grades. Again, the peculiar relation 

 of preparatory schools to colleges in this 

 country makes it imperative that we de- 

 velop standard elementary courses which 

 any school can give with assurance that 

 they will be accepted for entrance to any 

 college. Happily we are here upon firm 

 ground, for we already possess such a 

 standard course, or unit, in that formu- 

 lated by a committee of botanical teachers, 

 HOW the committee on education of this so- 

 ciety. This course is formulated upon the 

 synthetic principle, that is, it selects the 

 most fundamental and illuminating mat- 

 ters offered by the science without regard 

 to its artificial divisions, and combines 

 these in such manner as to make them 

 throw most light upon one another. Its 

 adaptability to our conditions, and its ac- 

 ceptability to our best educational opinion, 

 is shown by several facts, by its adoption 

 as the unit by the college entrance exami- 

 nation board which has been holding ex- 

 aminations upon it all over the country 

 for six years past, by its use in innumer- 

 able high schools, by the agreement be- 

 tween its plan and that of all of the recent 

 and successful text-books, by the final 

 disappearance of all influential opposition 

 to it, and lastly by the substantial con- 

 currence of the unit now in formulation 

 by the teachers of the middle west. With 

 so firm a foundation in a plan we ought to 

 be able to unite on perfecting details. 

 There is no inconsistency between such 

 standardization as this and the greatest 

 freedom in teaching. The optical power 

 of the microscope has not been injured by 

 the standardization of its form and screw- 

 threads. 



I come now to the fourth of the reasons 

 why our science teaching is defective, and 

 that is the most vital of all. Our method 



of training teachers is wrong. I believe it 

 is true that in general our educational ad- 

 vances work down from above — from uni- 

 versity to college, from college to high 

 school and from high school to the grades; 

 and in a general way each of these institu- 

 tions is the finishing school for teachers of 

 the grade below. Now the work of our 

 universities is for the most part admirable 

 in every way, but they are not good train- 

 ing schools for college teachers. One of 

 the greatest of our college presidents lately 

 remarked that the principal obstacle in the 

 way of making a college what it ought to 

 be is the difficulty nowadays of securing 

 the right kind of teachers. "We have to 

 take them as the universities supply 

 them, ' ' he said, ' ' and then make them into 

 good college teachers afterwards." The 

 defects of the universities in this respect 

 are two-fold. First they are training stu- 

 dents only for their own kind of activity, 

 in which everything centers, very prop- 

 erly, in research: and second, they are 

 omitting to teach divers matters very es- 

 sential for the college teacher to know. 



That our imiversities make research the 

 central feature and great leading method 

 of their training of graduate students is 

 natural, logical and correct, so far as train- 

 ing for their own kind of activity is con- 

 cerned; but it ignores the fact that only 

 a minority can remain in that work. The 

 justification of the training of all by a 

 method which is correct only for a minor- 

 ity is usually expressed in this form, that 

 he is the best teacher who is an active in- 

 vestigator. Now if this is qualified by the 

 proviso, "other things being equal," it is 

 approximately true; but in fact other 

 things very rarely are equal, and in the 

 matter under discussion they are pro- 

 foundly unequal. In my opinion the im- 

 position upon all university students of 

 the university research ideal is doing vast 



