CHAPTER III 



THE CO-ORDINATION OF SUBJECTS STUDIED 



COMPARATIVELY few students either grasp or understand the 

 value of the various studies laid out for them by college authori- 

 ties, and it is this lack of grasp and understanding which causes 

 them to slur over much of the subject-matter which it is necessary to 

 know later. 



As a starting point for this understanding it is essential that one 

 grasp fully the underlying object of scientific study. 



In our smaller cities there used to be exhibited a marvelous clock 

 which had some ten or fifteen dials upon it, each dial recording some 

 important time-element. One, for example, showed the hour of the day, 

 another the time of the rising and setting of the sun, another did the 

 same for the moon, while still another o;ave the time of the ebb and flow 

 of the tides. There was a dial showing the day of the month, so nicely 

 arranged that even the 29th day of February in leap year would be 

 noted. This clock was so adjusted that there was not only the intonation 

 of a chime every quarter-hour, but several interesting events were 

 recorded at this same time ; for instance, a cuckoo announcing the quar- 

 ter-hour was followed by a rooster strutting forth and crowing, while 

 on the hour, a tiny door at one side of the clock opened, and the twelve 

 apostles solemnly marched across and disappeared on the opposite side, 

 while strangest of all, these apostles did not drag their feet, but actually 

 lifted them as they took their hourly walk. 



And all of this elaborate adjustment was the result of a single clock- 

 work running by a single winding. 



A living organism is something like that clock, except that it is a 

 thousand-fold more complicated, for man can do many times the number 

 of things that the clock did. Now, the science of Biology is directed 

 just toward the one end of attempting to find what original mechanism 

 makes all these complicated actions possible. In other words, in the 

 study of Biology we are attempting to find not only life's clock-work 

 and the unit structures with which such a mechanism is built, but we 

 also try to approach that particular place or time in the history of the 

 universe when the first winding took place. 



Chemistry presents an excellent starting-point for further explana- 

 tion. In chemistry a compound is analyzed by finding the type of 

 molecules that are contained within it, a molecule being the smallest 

 obtainable particle of a chemical compound. The molecule, in turn, is 

 then reduced to atoms of the various chemical elements, an atom being 

 the smallest obtainable particle of a chemical element. The mind can 

 readily conceive, however, that there are smaller particles than atoms. 



