654 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 486. 



it is astonishing how little attention is given 

 to pointing a way for the inductive study of 

 ecology on the part of students. It seems 

 hardly to be recognized yet that ecological 

 types are as common and as widely distrib- 

 uted as are morphological types, and that 

 their study may be made to yield equally 

 definite results. It is perhaps excusable, 

 therefore, when teachers read the interest- 

 ing discussions presented in these books, 

 and instead of applying inductive methods 

 to the study of the same subjects, revert to 

 anatomy for pedagogic results, or else lapse 

 into text-book and recitation methods; but 

 it is still painful, and lamentable, and 

 altogether unnecessary. 



There are values of one sort growing out 

 of the intensive laboratory study of a few 

 types; these values have long been recog- 

 nized. There are other and equal values 

 growing out of the observation of nature in 

 a great variety of forms and relations. 

 These latter values a good ecological pro- 

 gram will enable us to realize. 



3. A few practical, individual exercises 

 in methods of economic procedure, based on 

 and necessitating a somewhat intimate 

 knowledge of structure, functions and hab- 

 its of important animals and plants and 

 their enemies— not the mere entertaining 

 observations of nature study in the grades, 

 such as feeding a frog on cut worms : such 

 things should have been done already : but 

 simple practical economic experiments un- 

 der natural conditions, with the fundamen- 

 tal biologic facts and the desired practical 

 results kept clearly in mind. I would in- 

 clude this, not as a sop to 'practical folk,' 

 though it would in many cases make for 

 solidarity between school and home, but 

 because it is justified on good pedagogic 

 grounds. The youthful mind is practical. 

 Interest is sharpened, and the details of 

 scientific knowledge are better appreciated 

 when things taught are recognized 'as con- 

 stituting useful knowledge. 



4. The study of reproduction and devel- 

 opment. This is in a sense half of biology ; 

 for the place of a species on the earth is 

 maintained if it (1) get a living and (2) 

 reproduce its kind. I deem the few local 

 and sporadic attempts that have been made 

 to exclude all consideration for reproduc- 

 tion from the high-school course as an un- 

 worthy concession to near-sighted pseudo- 

 pedagogy. For my own part I have al- 

 ways deemed it a privilege to bring to young 

 people some real information as a basis for 

 sane consideration of this much abused sub- 

 ject. Aside from the paramount impor- 

 tance of the subject biologically, I should 

 regret to see this (oftentimes the only) 

 gateway of practical knowledge shut be- 

 fore them. Furthermore, I am inclined 

 to think that the teaching of these matters 

 is needed as an antidote to the smut of 

 the ancient classics and of English history. 

 I judge the results of the teaching of this 

 subject not by the attitude of the student 

 when it is first broached, but by his atti- 

 tude when the study is done. 



Life history studies, it seems to me, 

 are worthy of the greater part of the time 

 spent on these matters, and to these may 

 be added a modicum of embryology of the 

 most elementary sort, preferably, for us in 

 the interior, on the eggs of some amphibian, 

 and a brief, clear and straightforward pre- 

 sentation of the essential features of re- 

 production, illustrated in the lower forms 

 of animal life and in plants. 



5. Physiology, especially the physiology 

 of organs. This already holds a secure 

 and well-merited place; so I but mention 

 it in passing. 



6. The study of structure. Anatomy, for 

 a considerable period held the field, almost 

 to the exclusion of every other phase of 

 biological study. But with recognition of 

 the fact that the educational values of bi- 

 ology are far from being confined to the 

 dissecting table, some of the anatomical 



