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BIOLOGICAL CONFERENCE

LEADER, J. REMSEN BISHOP, PRINCIPAL OF WALNUT HILLS HIGH SCHOOL, CINCINNATI, O.

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BIOLOGY AS A MEANS OF INDUCING THE PUPIL TO THINK

[REPORTED BY C. D. BAKER, EAST HIGH SCHOOL, MINNEAPOLIS]

ARTHUR G. CLEMENT, inspector of the University of the State of New York. It seems to me that this subject of biology is one of the very best subjects that can be brought before a student to lead him to think. Now, thinking consists in observing and comparing and arriving at a general conclusion. Biology necessarily deals with the subject-matter of botany, zoölogy, and physiology. I have found that students learn to compare and observe by studying insects. I think it a better way to induce the highschool student to think than to have him begin in the logical way of commencing with the very lowest forms. I would therefore first introduce the high-school student, or even the grammar-school student, to insects, giving him two or three, and having him compare their structure. He can also study the homologies between different insects, like the homology between the tongue of a butterfly and the maxilla of some other insect, which he will find extremely interesting to do. The other way has also been tried in the state of New York-of beginning with the very lowest forms of amoeba and going on up in the grade of life until we arrive at the higher orders. If the pupil continues his study long enough, of course he must necessarily arrive at some ideas of the evolution of organic life, and that brings him at once to the study of evolution in general. We all know that the principal of evolution is most thoroly taught and best taught in zoölogy.

John V. Crone, State Normal School, Greeley, Colo.—I like the idea brought out by the last speaker with regard to teaching biology by beginning with the lowest forms of life, but I do not agree that we should begin with insects. I wish to say a word for the birds. Thru the study of their habits we can teach the fundamental facts of the theory of evolution. I think we ought to begin the subject of biology with the study of the birds, their habits, the nest and eggs, and then, perhaps, their structure.

Oliver S. WeSCOTT, principal of Robert A. Waller High School, Chicago, Ill.—I wish to say a word for the bugs. I think these two gentlemen are both on the right track. I think the teacher in zoölogy, or any of these subjects, should take for the starting point the material that he is most familiar with, and that, no doubt, is what these two gentlemen are doing. By that means they run no risks and make the subject altogether the more interesting. It seems to me that this is exactly the channel in which we should all work. My present teacher in biology begins with the bugs, but he at the same time makes use of the birds. Last year in Lincoln Park, in Chicago, the pupils in the second year of the high school over which I have the honor to preside identified 152 species of wild birds, a number almost incredible in the midst of a busy, bustling city. But I do not think it is quite fair to the bugs to say they are uninteresting that they are less attractive than the birds. It simply indicates a sort of feminine phobia of some kind in regard to things that have not been so extensively or thoroly investigated. I have not found it difficult to interest children in insects of any order or condition.

MISS GERTRUDE GIBBS, High School, Everett, Wash.-I think that the subjects for the study of out-of-door biology depend entirely upon where one lives. When I taught in North Dakota I thought the boys and girls ought to study gophers, and when in the Minnesota lake region there were the lakes and the ponds. Since going to Everett, Wash., we have Puget Sound, and the boys and girls bring in plenty of starfish and other salt-water animals. This spring I had the rare pleasure of taking fifty of my boys and girls to Sunset Falls, forty miles up into the mountains, and the things they saw and noted were well

worth seeing. They got a great deal out of it. I feel that our work in the secondary schools is to get the pupils out of doors and to notice the haunts and habits of animals. In the woods, have them turn over the logs and stumps for subjects, and, if teaching on the prairies of North Dakota, study the gophers; if at the seaside, the various forms of sea life.

W. D. GROVE, Ferguson, Mo.-I like the idea of beginning with the forms of life which are near at hand. If we live in the land of crocodiles, let us study the crocodiles. If we live in the land of grasshoppers, let us take up grasshoppers, and make the most of them. Education, it seems to me, is that which enables one to become familiar with the things in every-day life. Last fall my class began on the grasshopper, because the grasshoppers were plentiful at the time. We put in about a week or so on the grasshopper. One day a terrapin happened to cross our school yard, and the boys captured him and brought him in, and we immediately left the subject we were on and took up the subject of terrapins and turtles, and in a little while there was something like a dozen brought in from all over the country, until we had plenty of terrapins and tortoises and turtles. We have taken up the earthworm, which the girls do not regard with such abhorrence after we have studied it awhile. If the study of biology does not do anything else, it teaches the boys and girls at least to open their eyes and observe some of the peculiarities and beauties of nature.

JULIA B. CLIFFORD, East High School, Minneapolis, Minn.-The biology and science teachers who are here now, I think, consider themselves as pioneers in the work of teaching biology, both botany and zoology, as a science. We think if we give up the study of structure that we are certainly going backwards, and so we are trying to carry on the study of structure at the same time that we carry on the study of ecology. We do not know yet just what we are going to do; but we certainly are not going to give up the study of structure. As far as my own experience goes, the trouble has not been in getting the pupils interested. What I have had trouble with is leading the board of education and the principal and the people to recognize that I am teaching a science that is valuable to the pupils.

Just how a subject strikes the pupil at the beginning is not the main thing. I do not pay very much attention to whether the girls are going to be squeamish over the bugs or whether they are going to get over it; I know they will. If I feel that the time is favorable to begin with insects I begin with insects. But I am all the time trying to teach the pupils the principles of evolution; all the time I have in mind that that is what I am doing rather than giving the pupils a knowledge of the special parts. I do not think it makes very much difference whether they know the length of a bird's primaries or secondaries or the length of the bill, but it does make a great deal of difference whether they see that all these things have a very deep meaning, and that everything they study has a deep meaning for them.

As has been said before, I think we take their general knowledge of evolution too much for granted. If you go thru any community you will find that with the majority of people evolution means that man has descended from a monkey, and it does not mean anything else to them. In my work we are trying to counteract that, and to lead our pupils to understand that evolution touches every phase of science.

This coming year our course of study is to be changed to a certain extent. Botany is to have a much more dignified place than it ever has had. We have made a strong fight for both zoology and botany. We have gained something for botany, and we hope in a few years that we will secure a place for zoology. Physics is the one science that has always had a dignified position in these schools until this year. You may not all agree with me that this is right, but this is what is to be done: botany and physics are to be optional (one required) in our course of study for the coming year.

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Physics has been well taught as a rule in all our high schools. Every pupil has been required to take physics, and it has been a good deal of a bugbear to most pupils. Now we expect this year that the weaklings and culls, because they have the privilege, are going to swing around to botany, and we are going to present such a strong course in botany that that will not happen again. For a good many pupils a course in botany can be made just as good training as a course in physics; but ought we simply to entertain and interest, or shall we go on with the idea that we are going to teach botany as a science, that we are going to teach it in such a way that the pupils will feel that there is good, solid hard work there for them every school day in the year, and that they have something every school day to accomplish — not something set before them to be looked at, but something which they must work out for themselves? If it is experimental work, ought it not to be just as hard and trying, the data to be taken and the results recorded just as carefully, as in similar work in physics? Can we, by giving up the study of structure, teach the scientific principles which we know are back of that? Ought we not to keep up that part of the work as well? We give a year to botany, but the time which we get in the different high schools is not the same. We have simply assumed in the high school where I teach that we must have eight periods a week for the subject. I have simply taken the ground that nothing else will do. I think teachers can get at least that much time, and as I see my way clear, where I think it can be done, I am going to take ten periods.

MR. BISHOP.-I do not see why one subject should be regarded as less dignified than another. What is there in a subject which would make it more dignified than any other? We used to think Latin and Greek had certain dignity, because they were so old, but otherwise I think this idea, which has sprung up for some unknown cause, ought to be discarded everywhere. I think probably the most dignified subject in my school is botany, because if there is any question of dignity it would apply to the magnificent

trees.

MISS CLIFFORD.-I do not mean to say that I consider a subject lacking in dignity, but I do say I want it to have a dignified place in the course of study; and by that I mean it should be recognized-have just as much value as one of the mathematical sciences.

W. D. GROVE, Ferguson, Mo.-I will tell you what is wrong here. The trouble is due to the fact that the departments are competing with each other. Now, we measure the value of botany by these terms: Can I, as a teacher of botany, demand and secure as much work from my pupils as the teacher of mathematics or the teacher of physics, or the teacher of Latin and Greek? We should base our claim upon the amount of interest we arouse in our pupils, and try to lead them to realize the value of the work to them, rather than that other kind of thing which we call class-room pressure. We say we feel better when the principal of the school is in sympathy with the work, but that, in some cases, would be an unfortunate condition, because he might be too much interested, or think he knows too much about it. The great essential in teaching botany or zoology is being left alone, so let us be thankful that we are as free as we are.

MR. WESCOTT, of Chicago.-I arise to ask the lady (Miss Clifford) a question. I would really like to know whether the arrangement of the courses in Minneapolis is such that physics and botany, being optional studies, may both be neglected by pupils who are graduated from the schools.

MISS CLIFFORD.- No sir, they cannot.

PHYSICAL-SCIENCE CONFERENCE

LEADER, W. A. FISKE, INSTRUCTOR IN PHYSICS, HIGH SCHOOL, RICHMOND, Ind.

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MR. FISKE, the leader, introduced the topic as follows:

Physical science as we find it today in secondary schools is the result of a steady evolution. A quarter of a century ago it was taught mostly in a didactic manner, with no thought of a laboratory, and with but little experimental work in the lecture room.

The illustrations of the text were examined and carefully discussed. Later, when apparatus became cheaper and was more accessible to the average school, experimental work for illustrative purposes was made a part of the daily recitation. Finally, the laboratory was introduced, which added a decided interest to the work and made it much more valuable to the pupil.

All experimental work was at first qualitative in its nature, and inductive methods of presentation were largely employed by those having the work in charge. Recently inductive text-books have been considered out of date, and, to maintain their place in the field, of necessity have undergone a careful revision.

Thus we see that the methods of presenting these subjects, and even the tools with which the work is done, are not fixed, but are subject to wide variations upon the inception of new ideas. That is why we meet here today for the purpose of discussing these subjects in their various phases and obtaining for all the best that each one has to bring. The relation which the physical sciences bear to certain other subjects of the curriculum is one of extreme interest. As the most important of these, mathematics, English, and drawing may be named.

There was a time when physics and chemistry, instead of being mathematical, as at present, were more philosophical. The problem in physics was but little known, while much time was spent in reasoning upon obvious natural phenomena. It is not so now. The text-book on these subjects, especially physics, that is not rigidly mathematical is looked upon with some doubt as to its being the proper one for use in the upper classes of our secondary schools.

In view of this condition of things, it is of advantage that the department of mathematics recognize the needs of pupils beginning the subject of physics. The hare and hound style of problems in algebra is in a measure being displaced by those of a more practical value by instruction and drill upon principles that will be of far more advantage further on in the course.

It frequently happens that a pupil having three terms of algebra and one or more of geometry is tripped up on the solution of a simple equation in the subject of physics. This, however, is not a fault of the teacher of mathematics any more than of the teacher of physics. The fault, we believe, lies in the fact that the pupil is permitted to regard the subjects of mathematics and physics as two separate and distinct things, with no relation whatever existing between them. The pupil has finished his mathematics, as he thinks, and begins the subject of physics, to him a new field, little thinking he can use the old knowledge to continue his work.

The same close relation should exist with the departments of English and drawing, because of the great value of each to the work in physics, while the latter may be made most helpful to the work of these two departments.

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There seems to be a growing tendency in some schools to make the work easy, as it is called. A teacher the other day said: "I have one child, and if she passes in her work and has a good time while doing it I shall be satisfied." If "a good time means a thoro entering into the spirit of the work, a high appreciation of all the school is able to give, and a proper bearing under its rules and regulations, the statement may be

an appropriate one; but if the ordinary meaning of "a good time" is understood, this is certainly not the proper attitude to take. It vitiates the school and inculcates in the mind of the child improper notions of life. The school is not the place to have "a good time," but a place where one may come up against difficult things. The work should have enough of severity about it to command the highest respect of the pupil, and at the same time should be made so interesting and attractive by the teacher that it will be a pleasant rather than an irksome task.

A few, it is true, do fall by the wayside, but such results, upon investigation, are nearly always found to be due to outside disturbances, rather than to good, wholesome, and well-regulated study.

The work of physics and chemistry, then, should be made serious. It should mean something. The laboratory should be made a place for working out good, substantial results, and not a place of amusement. To this end the work, especially in physics, should be purely quantitative in its nature, in which case the pupil will have greater respect for what he is doing, and will find greater pleasure in it because of the definite results he is able to obtain.

The voluminous condition of the majority of text-books is a problem with which the teacher has to deal, and unless a judicious pruning is resorted to the work cannot be efficiently done. This is especially true where one-third to one-half of the time is devoted to laboratory work. An attempt to cover too much ground in one year, either in the laboratory or class-room, is, we believe, a serious fault, and one which results in many bad habits on the part of the pupil. The work is poorly done; much of it is unfinished and unmastered; the pupil fails to appreciate the importance of the subject, and falls far short of one of its prime purposes - the development of a scientific attitude of mind. The aim, we believe, should be to spend the time allotted to a given subject upon the most important parts of the text, and then use all possible means to have the pupil appreciate and master the work assigned him. What these most important parts are is involved in the first question for discussion this afternoon the proportional amount of time in a oneyear's course in physics to be given to the following subjects: Mechanics, heat, sound, light, magnetism, and electricity.

There was a time when I felt that the greater portion of the school year should be spent upon electricity, but I do not think so now. I do not know what others think, but it seems to me from my own observation that the best results are obtained from a careful study of mechanics and heat; therefore, it might be well to spend at least half of the time upon these two subjects - a fourth of the time given to a thoro consideration of the general principles of sound and light, and perhaps about as much time on electricity as upon the last two.

WILLIS E. TOWER, instructor in physics, Englewood High School, Chicago.—I agree with our chairman that mechanics and heat should occupy half the time, but I am not quite ready, however, to give electricity any less time than is given to sound and light. I cannot discuss this outline as I should like to, since I am sure it would interfere with what others have to say. I should like, therefore, instead of discussing it, to make an announcement that there was formed last month a Central Association of Physics Teachers, along the line of the Western Association of Physics Teachers. Many of you doubtless know of this, and perhaps some of you were present at its formation. And some of you are familiar with the new publication, School of Science. The editor of School of Science is the secretary of the association, whose president is Chas. H. Smith, of Hyde Park High School. Its first regular meeting is to be held next Thanksgiving vacation at the Mining Institute, Chicago, and among the speakers will be Professor Carhart, of Michigan. I believe this Central Association of Physics Teachers will be of great assistance to physics teachers in secondary schools and colleges in getting together along the right lines of physics teaching.

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