10 



criticisms or contemptuous sneers as to prejudice the uninformed pub- 

 lic against such policy. The general public is at best slow to adopt 

 the results of science and inclined to be suspicious regarding even 

 well-established points. .What else can we expect, then, if some parties 

 in the name of science denounce such results but that scientific work 

 in general shall be discredited and its advancement hampered where 

 it should be supported. 



DUTY AS EDUCATORS. 



The problem of how to reach with the facts we have gathered the 

 people for whom we work, is one of the most difficult to solve. It 

 seems to me to be so closely connected with our schemes of education 

 that I venture to make some suggestions upon it here. 



No matter how carefully we experiment, how accurate and useful 

 our results, we must place these results before a public uneducated in 

 the details of our science — indeed, a public the majority of which have 

 scarcely the- first elements of a knowledge which will permit them to 

 use the results presented. This means that we must present explicit 

 instructions as to method, leaving nothing to the reader, and that he 

 must follow in the most empirical manner. How shall we remedy this 

 difficulty f Teach entomology or zoology in the common schools ! I 

 certainly can not bring myself to advocate such a measure under 

 present conditions. While I would not discourage any effort toward 

 a wider knowledge of nature on the part of all school children, I must 

 confess to considerable distrust of the fad for nature study as it is 

 cropping out in later years, mainly because I fail to see where suitably 

 prepared teachers are available to conduct such work. Not one com- 

 mon school teacher in a thousand, I think it safe to say, is prepared to 

 take a child and give it instruction in this line. To attempt it with 

 teachers totally unacquainted with nature is simply to foredoom to 

 failure. Education here, as in other lines, must go from the higher to 

 the lower grades. The universities must and are preparing a corps of 

 teachers who are becoming more and more proficient. These in turn 

 in the smaller colleges, academies, and high schools will gradually 

 bring some scientific method and system to the teaching of biology, 

 and in time, I trust, the subject may be taught in something like suit- 

 able form to interest and instruct the young pupil. The method, how- 

 ever, has been much discussed, and we have at present widely varying 

 policies advocated by distinguished educators. I think we may reason- 

 ably inquire whether the present trend of university training in zoology 

 is the best possible for the end we have in view. 



The success of economic entomology among the people in general is 

 dependent on their ability to use the knowledge gained b}- experiment, 

 and this ability is dependent on the training received in lower grades 

 of school work, the teaching of which must come from higher institu- 

 tions of learning. Our success as economic entomologists, then, is 

 vitally interested in .the methods of instruction employed in the higher 



