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TENTH REPORT. 
dead (or dissection) side, or again, the study of animal and plant life directly 
from Nature, rather than the mere study about same. This includes not 
only the study of habitats and habits, but of life relations and even economic 
values; and furnishes incidentally a training in keen, discriminating obser- 
vation, which will enable a good student to recognize points of similarity 
and difference, and at the same time gives a practical knowledge of many 
of the life forms of the region. Modern Natural History, in brief, includes 
the older Natural History, enriched by modern Ecology. 
All Natural Science is so fascinating and so enriching that it ought not to 
be difficult for a well-trained teacher to interest intelligent pupils in that 
part of the nature world in which they live; and I believe this is easily done 
if the teacher himself has a love for the work, and if the right metiiod of 
procedure is used. 
The great masters of botany and zoology have been eminently successful 
in not merely interesting, but moreover enthusing their students with a love 
for such study; and wherever a lack of interest in these subjects obtains — 
if such may be the case — the trouble certainly lies with the teacher or the 
manner of procedure, or kind of work attempted, for the biological subjects 
themselves ought to be far more interesting today than ever before. 
If the biological work in secondary schools is thoroughly effective it should 
lay the foundations for a deep interest and keen delight in biological study 
which shall only begin — not end — when such courses are completed. To 
accomplish this it is evident that the student must be trained in phases of the 
work he can carry on, or at least make use of, in later years — something that 
will put him in closer touch with his surroundings, and will afford keen 
delight in the travel, observations and leisure study of life after his school 
days are over. 
Let us briefly consider what phases of biological work will give the best 
preparation for this end. How many students, after leaving school, will carry 
on the study of types with a compound microscope? Probably not more than 
two or three of our students out of a thousand will ever own a compound 
microscope; and whether these two or three would use the microscopes in 
studying types or not is doubtful. 
How many students have you ever known who were so fond of dissecting 
snakes and worms, or even cats, that they would have the least desire, after 
leaving school, to carry on such work, making laborious careful drawings 
of muscles, nerves, or skeleton parts. 
There may be some of this class but I have yet to meet them ! 
We are doubtless all familiar with Geo. Ade’s tale about the big boy in 
the little red school house who “jumped the traces when he had to sit down 
and count the petals (as Mr. Ade incorrectly expresses it) on an ox-eye 
daisy. ” Of course, Mr. Ade is fond of talking — often without saying much — 
but that is his way of getting the coin, which means so much to him. Yet 
there is a grain of truth in this bushel of chaff after all. If a boy has any 
life and energy 1 shouldn’t blame him for rebelling if he is long inflicted with 
dry, dead dissection work in either botany or zoology. A very limited amount 
of dissection work is doubtless of value in secondary schools — and as a college 
elective for a certain class it is without doubt important — but a high school 
course in biology where the work is largely done through the study of dead 
specimens is quite as much out of place for the average young pupil as a 
course in Paleontology would be. Both deal with dead forms, and one is 
quite as interesting, as inspiring, and as helpful as the other. And in some , 
