Apeil 3, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



527 



serted, to conduct specific school exercises 

 for training the range of attention. A de- 

 tailed account will be published later. 



A Method of Concentration in Teaching 

 Medicine: Professor W. T. Porter, Har- 

 vard University. 



The Grading of Students: Professor Max 

 Meyer, University of Missouri. 



Scales of Measurements in Education: Pro- 

 fessor E. L. Thorndike, Teachers Col- 

 lege, New York. 



Professor Thorndike showed a scale of 

 merit in handwriting, established empiric- 

 ally by gradings of several thousand sam- 

 ples of handwriting. Such a scale makes 

 it possible for any specimen of handwriting 

 to be graded rapidly and with any neces- 

 sary precision. It also permits students 

 of education who use it to give grades that 

 shall have the same significance, no matter 

 by whom given, and to present a measure- 

 ment of the quality of handwriting at- 

 tained by a given school in a brief and 

 unambiguous set of figures. 



The Place and Content of a Course in 



Biology in the High School: G. W. 



Hunter, DeWitt Clinton High School, 



New York. 



Statistics show that over 50 per cent, of 

 the pupils in high schools in New York 

 City leave before the end of the second 

 year. Science work has won its right for 

 existence in the curricula of the high 

 school; a science having utilitarian value 

 should be the one placed in the first year 

 of a high school course of study. 



The biological sciences are best fitted for 

 the above purpose. Biology gives training 

 in scientific method. It provides the child 

 material which will be useful in prepara- 

 tion for future citizenship. It allows, in 

 its various phases, of application to lunnan 

 affairs. Its informational content is of 

 immense and farreaching practical utility. 



A recommended course treats of the gen- 

 eral principles of physiology of plants and 

 animals, with special application of these 

 data to the human race. Types are util- 

 ized to illustrate certain general biologic 

 principles rather than to show classifica- 

 tion. Emphasis is placed on the humani- 

 tarian and utilitarian aspect of biology as 

 seen in its economic phases. More stress 

 is laid on the informational and cultural 

 content and less on the teaching of scien- 

 tific method as such. Nature-study meth- 

 ods are used to some extent in observational 

 work. 



Such a course should not be offered as. 

 college entrance requirement, but should be 

 supplemented by a year of either botany 

 or zoology in the latter years of the high 

 school. 



The Scientific Basis of High School 

 Studies: Professor C. DeGarmo, Cornell 

 University. 

 This paper will appear in full in a future 



number of the School Review. 



The Pedagogy of the Danish People's High 

 Schools: Professor J. A. Bergstrom, 

 Indiana University. 



The Teaching of Spelling as a Scientific 

 Problem: Professor Henry Suzzallo, 

 Teachers College, New York. 



An Experiment in the Teaching of Homo- 

 nyms: Principal H. C. Pearson, Horace 

 Mann School, New York. 

 This experiment was recently carried on 

 in the Horace Mann Elementary School, in 

 order to determine the relative efficiency 

 of two common methods of teaching homo- 

 nyms, one that of teaching a pair of homo- 

 nyms together such as pair and pear, and 

 the other of teaching two such words sepa- 

 rately. The plan of the experiment was 

 to have one section of a given grade teach 

 homonyms by one method, and the other 

 section of the same grade by another. 



