267 



OF INTEREST TO TEACHERS 



Biology in Secondary Schools * 

 By Maurice A. Bigelow 



Looking at the problems of high-school biology from the 

 standpoint of the great majority of pupils, not from that of 

 the selected few whose interests or plans may sometimes demand 

 special arrangement of courses, my answer to the Departmental 

 Editor's question, "Should the high-school biology be one based 

 on the conception of biology as a single science, using plant or 

 animal materials as occasion demands for developing principles, 

 or should it be separate sub-courses or entirely distinct courses 

 in botany, zoology, or human physiology?" is " yes " for the first 

 part of the question and an emphatic " no " for the second part. 

 And the following considerations point to such a conclusion : 



The practical problems of the high-school curriculum, 

 viewed from the standpoint of school administration, demand 

 concentration of the biological work into one course adapted 

 for the great majority of pupils. Here are the facts in support 

 of this : {a) It is generally admitted that four science courses, 

 one for each year, offer the maximum amount of science desir- 

 able for the average secondary-school pupils, {b) Chemistry, 

 physics, botany, zoology, human physiology, earth science — a 

 total of six — are the sciences which must be taken into considera- 

 tion, {c) There are two possible solutions, namely, election or 

 concentration, {d) Election means that pupils will fail to get 

 a broad outlook on the field of natural science, and possibly of 

 all biology, {e) Concentration of the biological work into one 

 course would leave biology, physics, chemistry, earth science — 

 one for each year of the high school. This looks reasonable 

 from the standpoint of school administration, but is a year in 

 biology satisfactory from the viewpoint of the biologist ? 



From many quarters we hear the objection that botany and zo- 

 ology have developed into quite separate sciences ; and this state- 

 ment is true in most colleges where research for the few rather 



* Reprinted by permission from School Science and AlatJiematics, October, 1 908. 



