Science-Teaching in the Schools. 901 
tematic teaching. The objects most interesting to children are liv- 
ing things—plants and animals. Botany and zoology should accord- 
ingly be the principal subjects in the science-teaching in the lower 
grades. The comparison, drawing, and description of various forms 
of leaves, will furnish delightful occupation and valuable discipline 
for the youngest children. A little later the more easy and conspic- 
uous flowers can be studied, and later still the more obscure and 
difficult flowers. In zoology, attention should be given not to crin- 
oids and hydroids and infusoria, but to the mammals and birds 
and reptiles and fishes and insects which the children can see 
alive. In places immediately on the sea-shore, some of the more 
conspicuous marine animals may advantageously be included. The 
most common and familiar mammals, as cats, dogs, horses, rats, 
should be first studied; and rudimentary ideas of homology and 
teleology and the principles of classification can be developed in the 
study of these most familiar objects. From mammals the study 
may proceed in later years to birds, and then to the less familiar 
lower classes of vertebrates, and later still to arthropods and mol- 
luses. Along with the change of subjects, there will naturally be 
somewhat of a change of method. There will be less of simple 
observation and description of external characters, more explana- 
tion of anatomy and physiology, and more discussion of general 
relations, 
In several of the States, laws have been passed, requiring in all 
the schools instruction in physiology and hygiene, with special ref- 
erence to the effects of stimulants and narcotics. There has been 
an element of fanatical exaggeration in the philanthropic agitation 
which has led to such legislation, and some of the books which 
have been prepared, and some of the teaching which has been done, 
in obedience to the demand, have not been of great scientific value. 
I believe, nevertheless, that simple lessons in physiology and hygi- 
ene may with great advantage be commenced in the primary 
schools. It is indeed true that physiology can be taught only in a 
very unsatisfactory manner to pupils ignorant of chemistry and 
physics, for physiology is essentially chemistry and physics applied 
to the complex structures and actions of the living body. But 
very imperfect knowledge is better than absolute ignorance. And 
the immense importance of the subject, in connection with the fact 
that only a very small minority of the pupils will ever reach the 
