upon

(b) Growing out of the above there comes to be a change of emphasis on the scientific method. The method itself is identical, but the attitude toward it is different. In the early courses it was guided by the teaching purpose. We insist the method in order that the student may appreciate how the subject has grown, may realize how all truth must be reached, and may come habitually to apply the method to his life problems. In the later courses it becomes the method of research into the unknown. The student comes more and more to use it as a tool, in whose use he himself is subordinated to his devotion to a field of investigation.

(c) A greater emphasis upon such special forms of biological knowledge as will be necessary as tools in the succeeding steps, and the selection of subject matter with this specifically in view. This is chiefly a matter of information, making the next steps intellectually possible.

(d) More specific forms of skill, adapted to the work contemplated. Technic becomes an object in such courses. Morphology, histology, technic, exact experimentation, repetition, drill, extended comparative studies, classifi tion, and the like become more essential than in the elementary courses. Thoroughness and mastery are desiderata for the sake both of subject matter and character; and in very much greater degree than in the general course.

ORGANIZATION OF THE COURSE IN BIOLOGY

to be stand

ardized

rigidly

The writer does not feel that standardized programs in Biology biology in colleges are either possible or desirable. What courses not is set down here under this heading is merely intended as carrying out the principles outlined above, and not as the only way to provide a suitable program. The writer assumes that the undergraduates are handled by men of catholic interests; and that the undergraduate courses are not distributed and manipulated primarily as feeders for specialized departments of research in a graduate school. This latter attitude is, in my opinion, fatal to creditable

But they should follow

a general principle:

(1) The first group of

courses

duce to life

logical

courses

undergraduate instruction for the general student or for the future high school teachers of the subject.

There are three groups or cycles of courses which may properly be developed by the college or by the undergraduate department of the university.

First Group

This group contains introductory courses for all students, but organized particularly with the idea of bringing the rich material of biology to the service of young people with the aim of making them effective in life, and not as a first course for making them botanists or zoölogists.

Course Biology 1. General Biology

This course should introduce the student to the college method of work in the life sciences; should give him the should intro- general knowledge and points of view outlined above as rather than the chief aims of Biology; should synthesize what the student to later bio- already knows about plants and animals under the general conception of life. Ideally the botanical and zoölogical portions should be fused and be given by one teacher, rather than presented as one semester of botany and one of zoölogy. This, however, is frequently impracticable. In any event the total result should really be biology, and not a patchwork of botany and zoölogy. Hence there should be a free crossing of the barriers in use of materials at all times.

A year of biology is recommended because each pupil ought to have some work in both fields, and we cannot expect him to take a year in each.

Course Biology 2. History of Biology

This course, dealing with the relation of the development of biology to human interests and problems, may be given separately, or as a part of Course I, which should otherwise be prerequisite to it. This may be one of the most humanizing of all the possible courses in biology.

Second Group

This group furnishes a series of courses providing a thorough introduction to the principles and methods of botany and zoology. They provide discipline, drill, comparison, mastery of technic as well as increased appreciation of biology and of the scientific method. They should prepare for advanced work in biology, and for technical applications of it to medicine, agriculture, stock breeding, forestry, etc.

This outline for botany and zoölogy follows in the main the most common arrangement found in the schools of the country. In the personal judgment of the writer all undergraduate courses should combine aspects of morphology, physiology, ecology, etc., rather than be confined strictly to one particular phase; even histology and embryology can be better taught when their physiological aspects are emphasized. There is no fundamental reason, however, why there may not be great latitude of treatment in this group. An alluring feature of biological teaching is that a teacher who has a vital objective can begin anywhere in our wonderful subject and get logically to any point he wishes. These courses may be further subdivided, where facilities allow.

Third Group

This group contains certain of the more elementary applications of biology to human welfare. While having

(2) A second be technical and introductory to profes

group should

sional uses

group of special, but cultural,

courses

(3) A third practical value in somewhat specialized vocations, the courses in this group are not proposed as professional or technical. They are definitely cultural. Every college might well give one or more of them, in accordance with local conditions. They ought to be eligible without the courses of the second group. The order is not significant. Biology 3: Economic Entomology;

The first

to be given

in such a

way that

it might

fittingly be required of all freshmen

PLACE OF BIOLOGY IN THE COLLEGE
CURRICULUM

The introductory course (Biology 1) can be given in course ought such a way that it ought to be required of all students during the freshman or sophomore year, preferably the freshman. In addition to the life value suggested above, and its introductory value in later biology courses, such a course would aid the student in psychology, sociology, geology, ethics, philosophy, education, domestic economy, and physical culture. Effort should be made to correlate the biological work with these departments of instruction. The course as now given in most of our colleges and universities does not possess enough merit to become a required study. Perhaps all we have a right at present to ask is that biology shall be one of a group of sciences from which all students must elect at least one. It is preposterous, in an age of science, that any college should not require at least a year of science.

Biology 1 should be prerequisite for botany 1 and zoölogy 1, and for the special biology courses in group three. Botany 1 and zoölogy 1 should be made prerequisite for the higher courses in their respective fields; but aside from this almost any sequence would be allowable.

A major in biology should provide at least for biology 1 and 2, botany 1, zoölogy 1, botany 2 and 3, or zoölogy, 2 and 3. Chemistry is desirable as a preparation for the second group of courses.

METHODS OF TEACHING AS CONDITIONED BY THE
AIMS OUTLINED ABOVE

Since the laboratory method came into use among biologists, there has been a disposition, growing out of its very excellences, to make a fetich of it, to refuse to recognize the necessity of other methods, to be intolerant of any science courses not employing the laboratory, and to affect a lofty disdain of any pedagogical discussion of the question whatsoever. The tone in which all this is done suggests a boast; but to the discriminating it amounts to a confession! The result of it has been to retard the development of biology to its rightful place as one of the most foundational and catholic of all educational fields. The great variety of aim and of matter not merely allow, but make imperative, the use of all possible methods; and there is no method found fruitful in education which does not lend itself to use in biology. The lecture method, the textbook, the recitation, the quiz and the inverted quiz, the method of assigned readings and reports, the method of conference and seminar, the laboratory method, and the field method are all applicable and needed in every course, even the most elementary.

of the

Our method has thus crystallized about the laboratory as Prostitution the one essential thing; but worse, we have used the very laboratory shortcomings of the laboratory as an excuse for extending its sway. The laboratory method is the method of research in biology. It is our only way to discover unknown facts. Is it, therefore, the best way to rediscover facts? This does not necessarily follow, though we have assumed it. Self-discovered facts are no better nor more true than communicated facts, and it takes more time to get them. The laboratory is the slowest possible way of getting facts.