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On the contrary it is possible by means of highly organized 

 scientific courses in schools to kill, to a very thorough dead- 

 ness, interest in natural history and natural philosophy. The 

 writer ventures to express the opinion, long entertained and now, 

 through much inquiry among young men issued from the schools, 

 become a conviction, that the type of school physics course at 

 present in vogue often has this effect. The falling off in the 

 election of physics by college students since the general adoption 

 of an elaborate entrance requirement in physics is well known. 

 As for botany, an experienced college examiner in this subject 

 told the writer that candidates in botany could be grouped 

 into three classes. The first passed with honors : they came 

 from well-equipped schools where the subject was thoroughly 

 done. The second group merely passed. The third got in. 

 The college electives in botany, this professor continued, were 

 manned from classes two and three, the most satisfactory students 

 coming from the latter. Boys* perfectly "prepared" never after- 

 wards appeared upon the field. 



Such considerations as the foregoing, and the possibility of 

 the untoward effect suggested above, would seem to be enough 

 to command attention among scientific leaders to the problem 

 of school science even in the lowest grades. Unhappily there 

 are some who have frowned upon the movement to keep alive 

 in school children the " tentacles of inquiry ". Regarding nature 

 study as at best " the efflorescence of the sciences " they 

 have bidden the grade teacher (salaried at ;^40o) come to the 

 university for scientific training. They have neither inquired 

 into conditions in order to organize instruction suited to the 

 exigencies of the case, nor used their superior endowments of 

 knowledge and advantage of prospective in cooperation with 

 schoolmen seeking a betterment. But most happily there are 

 some eminent examples of the leader of science ahve to the 

 opportunity for wide service. The activity of these men must 

 eventuate not only in the enrichment and improvement of school 

 curricula, but also, as has just been suggested, in an acceleration 

 of the science process itself. The names of several eminent 

 Americans instantly occur to everyone in this connection. 



