MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
14 f> 
THE STUDY OF TYPES IN THE PRESENTATION OF BOTANY 
AND ZOOLOGY IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 
Nathan A. Harvey. 
1 assume as the basis for this discussion, that the teaching considered in 
this paper is educational in its nature rather than professional. I mean by 
this that it shall be for the ultimate purpose of training the mind to do better 
the things that all minds can do in some degree rather than to accumulate 
a fund of information to be used in the practice of a profession. The psycho- 
logical movement of the learner rather than the logical development of the 
subject is the thing that is of the first importance, and is the chief factor in 
determining the method to be employed. 
Permit me, also, to state that in all my illustrations I shall have in mind the 
teaching of science in high schools. If the teaching of scientific subjects in 
colleges and professional schools were to be considered, the illustrations 
and the basic propositions would need very considerable modifications. 
The greatest contribution of science to education is the scientific method. 
The scientific method is not a method of teaching, but it is a method of 
thought, and is capable of universal application. It is called the scientific 
method because it has been chiefly developed in scientific subjects by scien- 
tific men. Its importance is so great and so fully recognized that we are 
continually finding the scientific method applied to subjects formerly con- 
sidered most remote from scientific facts. 
In its essential features, the scientific method proceeds in an orderly way 
from the study of an individual to related individuals. By a perception 
of the resemblances and differences existing among individuals, the concept 
of a class is formed, and thereafter related individuals are grouped into the 
classes previously formed. By this process we are compelled to recognize 
the logical sequence and the relative significance of each before we can classify 
it. 
It will be seen that in the scientific method of study, an individual is the 
first thing to be considered. From this fact the scientific method is some- 
times regarded as an example of induction. In reality, the scientific method 
is quite as much deductive as it is inductive, but the starting point is the 
same as in a case of pure induction. This individual which is taken as the 
starting point may be called a type, since it always embodies the character- • 
istics of the group that is founded upon it. A type, however, may mean 
much more than the individual that is studied. It necessarily involves all 
the characters that enter into the concept of the class but it should be one 
that contains the average characters of the class. Individuals of the same 
kind are not all alike. Variations occur that make them individuals. These 
variations are 'quantitative in their nature, and in some individuals are much 
greater than they are in others. In any group of individuals that are com- 
bined into a class, there will always be extremes of variation, and an average 
point or norm from which variations occur. In the vicinity of this norm 
will be found the greater number of individuals that constitute the class. 
It is this average, this point of departure, this possessor of the common 
19 
