THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
VoL. XXII. SEPTEMBER, 1888. No. 261, 
SCIENCE-TEACHING IN THE SCHOOLS." 
BY WM. NORTH RICE. 
p word “ schools ” is here used in distinction from the higher 
institutions—colleges, universities and technological institutes. 
It will be convenient for us further to distinguish the “ high 
schools ” from the lower schools. As here used, the phrase “ high 
school ” designates a school whose pupils range from thirteen or 
fourteen to seventeen or eighteen years of age, and which professes 
to prepare students for the colleges and scientific schools. 
_ In considering what should be the course of study in the schools, 
it is necessary to recognize the distinction in scope and spirit 
between general and special education. By general education is 
meant such education as is intended to prepare a person for the 
duties of manhood or womanhood, irrespective of any particular 
trade, profession, or station in life. By special education is meant 
such education as is intended to prepare a person for some particular 
trade, profession, or station in life. The courses of study in the 
schools must be, in this sense, general. We are not to try in the 
schools to make biologists, geologists, nor chemists. We are not 
to make physicians, nor engineers, nor lawyers, nor clergymen. 
Very few of the children in the schools will enter any of these 
Professions ; and, of that few, still fewer are aware of their destiny. 
But all the children in our schools have the expectation of growing 
Up to manhood or womanhood. They will take their places in the 
< Address at the meeting of the American Society of Naturalists, in 
ew Haven, Conn., December, 1887, by William North Rice. 
