72 



THE RELATION OF FIRST YEAR BOTANY TO AD- 

 VANCED WORK, WITH REFERENCES TO CER- 

 TAIN APPLICATIONS AND BY-PRODUCTS 



By Paul B. Mann 



The present fluid and even kaleidoscopic status of elementary 

 biology in New York City high schools, reminds me forcibly of a 

 bit of doggerel which appeared years ago in Harper's Magazine. 

 A colored man had been exercising his mule in the plantation 

 garden, but an altercation arose between them, resulting in the 

 sudden juxtaposition of Rastus' head with the distal extremity 

 of one of the mule's hind legs. Rastus went to sleep. Later 

 consciousness began to dawn and he sat up and soliloquized in a 

 mournful way, beginning: 



"Is dis yuh me, or not me. 

 Or hab de Debil got me?" 



We will all grant that the world needs men and women of 

 scientific imagination and better viewpoints. "Where there is 

 no vision, the people perish." The march of progress can be 

 checked by observing the scrap heaps along its highway. But 

 one might well be perplexed when one finds any inconoclastic 

 authority throwing bodily to the discard-pile, a vehicle which is 

 having one of the most conspicuous careers in advancing human 

 achievement and aspiration. 



I have not only hope, I have faith that even arbitrary action 

 can not finally overthrow biology nor displace it permanently 

 from its position as a science of fundamental values for adoles- 

 cents, as well as adults. 



The most discouraging phase of the present situation in the 

 New York City high schools, it seems to me, is the possibility of 

 a hasty, unpedagogical ipse dixit, unsupported by judicial and 

 scientific investigations. 



Dr. Josephine Baker, in a recent lecture, spoke of the tre- 

 mendous need of conserving the Belgian children noiv, from 

 rickets and tuberculosis, if Belgium is to be! We know, but 

 sometimes forget, how truly the structure of the nation of to- 



