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EDUCATIONAL PAPERS 
 
 Illinois Science Teachers. 
 
 I. 1889-1890 
 
 189 V 
 
 ] W.FRANKS * SONS, PRINTERS, ENGRAVERS. 
 PEORIA.ILLJNOIS. 
 
EDUCATIONAL PAPERS 
 
 Illinois Science Teachers. 
 
 I. 1889-1890 
 
 Introduction 3 
 
 History and Status of Public Scliool 
 Worlt in Illinois, by S. A. Forbes.. 6 
 
 The Educational Value of Natural 
 Science in Elementary Schools, by 
 Chas. De Garmo 21 
 
 Botany in the High School, by W. H. 
 Hatch 26 
 
 5. Pedagogical Contents of Zoology, by 
 
 S. A.Forbes 38 
 
 6. The Relation of the Natural Sciences 
 
 to the other Studies of the Common 
 School, by F. M. McMurry 49 
 
 7. A Course of Science Study for the 
 
 First Four Years: its Aim, Material, 
 and Method, by Fernando Sanford. 64 
 
 1891 
 
 J.W.FRANKS «: SONS, PRINTERS, ENGRAVERS, 
 PEORIA, ILLINOIS. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Natural Science Sectioa of the Illinois State Teachers' 
 Association was organized during the session of the thirty-fifth 
 annual meeting of the State Association, held in Springfield, 
 Dec. 27, 28, 1888. At a preliminary meeting of teachers in- 
 terested in science work, which was held in the oflice of State 
 Superintendent Richard Edwards Dec. 27, a committee consist- 
 ing of S. A. Forbes, of Champaign, B. P. Cplton, of Normal, 
 and Fernando Sanford, of Englewood, was appointed to report 
 a plan of organization of a Science Teachers' Section of the 
 State Association. 
 
 At another meeting held in the same room on the follow- 
 ing day, Dec. 28, the committee submitted the following report, 
 which was unanimously adopted: 
 
 " Resolved, That we organize as the Natural Science Section of 
 the general Association. 
 
 That the section be limited, as to its subjects, to courses of study 
 and methods of instruction in the following natural ancl physical 
 sciences: Chemistry, Physics, Zoology, Botany, Physiology, and Geol- 
 ogy, and as to its voting membership, to members of the general 
 Association who teach any one or more of the above subjects. 
 
 That the President, Secretary, and Treasurer of the section act 
 as an executive committee." 
 
 The officers elected at this session, and reelected in 1889 
 and 1890, were S. A. Forbes, President, Fernando Sanford, 
 Secretary, and B. P. Colton, Treasurer. 
 
 The papers read and discussed at the session of 1889 were: 
 
 President's Address, — History and Status of Public School 
 Science Work in Illinois, by S. A. Forbes. 
 
 Pedagogical Function of Natural Science in Elementary 
 Schools, by Chas. De Garmo. 
 
 High School Botany, by W. H. Hatch. 
 
 At this session a committee consisting of E. A. Gastman, 
 Chas. De Garmo, B. P. Colton, W. H. Hatch, and Fernando 
 
Sanford, was appointed to act in concurrence with the Presi- 
 dent of the section in preparing a course of study in elemen- 
 tary science for the different grades of the public school. 
 
 At the session of 1890, the papers read before the section 
 were: 
 
 President's Addre'ss, — Pedagogical Contents of Zoology, 
 by S. A. Forbes. 
 
 The Natural Sciences in Relation to the other Studies of 
 the Common Schools, by F. M. McMurry. 
 
 At the request of a committee from the section that some 
 phase of science work should be represented on the general 
 program of the Association, Mr. Sanford was invited to read a 
 paper on " A Course of Science Study for the First Four Years, 
 its Aim, Material, and Method." 
 
 The committee on course of study appointed at the former 
 session submitted the following report, which was discussed at 
 length, and laid on the table for one year: 
 
 The Committee on Elementary Course of Science Study 
 appointed by the Natural Science Section of the Illinois State 
 Teachers' Association, met in the Harper House at Rock Island, 
 April 24, 1890. There were present Messrs. Gastman, Forbes, 
 Hatch, Colton, and Sanford. The members of the committee 
 were practically unanimous as to the aims of elementary science 
 instruction. Some of the purposes agreed upon were as follows: 
 
 Training to accurate observation, to careful comparison 
 and generalization, and to correct and fluent expression; 
 
 To develop a sympathetic interest in Nature, for its moral 
 effect as well as for its influence upon the intellectual activities; 
 
 To develop the cau'sal idea, and to teach the uniformity of 
 natural processes; 
 
 To furnish material for reading and language training. 
 
 It was the unanimous opinion of the committee that ele- 
 mentary science should be taught in some form in all the 
 grades. 
 
 It was also unanimously agreed that zoology is, of all the 
 sciences, best adapted for beginning this work with young 
 children. 
 
It was the opinion of the committee that for the first three 
 years of school, ninety^five per cent, of the science time should 
 be devoted to life studies, that for the next four years the 
 science work should be related as closely as possible to the 
 geography work, and that for the last year the physical sciences 
 should be made more prominent, probably occupying one third 
 of the science time. 
 
 E. A. Gastman, Chairman. 
 
 Fernando Sanfoed, Secretary. 
 
 The papers included in the present volume are those which 
 have been read before the section, and the paper read by Mr. 
 Sanford before the general Association. 
 
 S. A. FORBES, President, 
 
 Champaign, Ulinois. 
 
 Feenando Sanfoed, Secretary, 
 
 Lake Forest, Illinois. 
 
HISTORY AND STATUS OP PUBLIC SCHOOL SCIENCE 
 WORK IN ILLINOIS. 
 
 S. A. rORBES, Pn. D., PROFESSOR OF ZOOLOGY, 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS. 
 
 It is the purpose of this Society, as I understand it, to 
 systematically investigate, discuss, and formulate methods of 
 instruction in natural science, with a view to working out a 
 body of sound doctrine and rational method, in respect to which 
 we shall, if possible, become substantially agreed. These doc- 
 trines and methods we shall then try to bring to bear on the 
 public school work of Illinois, in the hope that science work 
 may be done here, in time, on rational principles and by meth- 
 ods approved by general experience. It is a work of progress 
 and reform to which we have pledged ourselves; progress in 
 the knowledge of principles and in the method of applying 
 them, and reform in the science work in the public schools 
 under our charge or immediate influence, and ultimately, as we 
 hope, in those of the state at large. 
 
 In beginning a work we may very naturally ask ourselves, 
 first, what has been done; and, second, what is next to do, — 
 the answer to the second question dependent on that to the 
 first, — and I have taken it for my part in the present program 
 to prepare a brief outline of the condition of the science work 
 in the public schools of Illinois at the present time; to explain 
 and describe, as well as I can and as far as I understand the 
 matter, the basis upon which it actually rests, and the forces 
 which have built it up and hold it in position, and to sketch 
 the history of its development. I very much wish that this 
 task might be performed in a thorough-going and exhaustive 
 manner, and I hope that this may yet be done by some one; but 
 in the time allowable here for such a discussion I can only 
 undertake to pick out a few items from the record, and to pre- 
 sent them, if possible, in a way to make them available for our 
 guidance. 
 
 The history of public school science work in this state is 
 remarkable for one prominent and critical occurrence, — the 
 
sudden introduction, by law, in 1872, of four new sciences into 
 the list required for a county teacher's certificate. Although 
 this legal enlargement of the public school course seems at first 
 blush unwisely and even absurdly abrupt, and although it was 
 unquestionably followed by many unfortunate immediate con- 
 sequences, yet a study of the situation at the time, and of the 
 previous history of the agitation of the subject and of the 
 progress of science teaching in the state, will show that it was 
 not as sudden and revolutionary a procedure as might be sup- 
 posed. Many incitements to progress in this direction had 
 long been at work in the public schools. A leaven of intelli- 
 gence and awakening ambition had made itself felt for many 
 years and in many ways, — through the reports and action of 
 the State Superintendent of Public Instruction; through the 
 State Normal School, opened in 1857; through the operations 
 of the State Natural History Society, organized in 1858, and 
 including many teachers in its active membership; through 
 the young Industrial School, now the University of Illinois, 
 established in 1867; and, long before that (in 1850 to 1854), 
 through the remarkable educational campaign which gave 
 origin to the University; through the more progressive teach- 
 ers themselves — a few of whom, in city and village schools, 
 were doing science work which it would be difficult to parallel 
 for scope and thoroughness at the present time; through papers 
 and discussions in the meetings of the State Teachers' Associa- 
 tion and the State Association of Principals and County Su- 
 perintendents; and through the educational periodicals of the 
 day. 
 
 The first State Superintendent, Ninian W. Edwards, had 
 declared, in 1854, in his first report, that the teachers of the 
 state should have a "practical education, in which should be 
 included not only what is commonly embraced in the common 
 school course, but a practical knowledge of the sciences in 
 their application to the ordinary pursuits of life." 
 
 Dr. Batemaa, in his first report, the third of the office, 
 had said, in 1860, " The senses are the pioneers of all knowledge. 
 The dawn and activity of the perceptive powers are always an- 
 tecedent to those of the reflective. The eye is the child's first 
 teacher; the ear its next; and for several years the chief work 
 
of education is to cultivate these organs." And, again, "It 
 is the facts of the outer or material world, with which we 
 must first deal, and the formation of habits of close and accu- 
 rate observation is the great work of the elementary teacher." 
 In 1862, he admonished the teachers of the state to "Keep the 
 schools in close and living contact with the objective, the real; 
 with nature and men and things; with the whole outer world 
 and its moving panorama of events, as the theatre on which 
 the pupils are to live and move and act." In his first announce- 
 ment of the requirements for the state certificate, made in 
 1861, while omitting the natural sciences from the list of 
 branches necessary for the diploma, he commended especially 
 vegetable and animal physiology, physics, chemistry, and geol- 
 ogy, as subjects with which the professional teacher should by 
 all means have some acquaintance, — without which he must 
 suffer great loss of power. In 1868 he foreshadowed the gen- 
 eral introduction of the sciences, and directly paved the way 
 for it, by making the state certificate conditional upon a satis- 
 factory knowledge of physiology, botany, zoology, and chem- 
 istry. The new law of 1872 merely extended to the county 
 examination the condition which had thus been for four years 
 applied to that for the state certificate, except that physics was 
 substituted for chemistry. 
 
 So far, then, as the State Superintendency is concerned, 
 the development of the public school course towards a knowl- 
 edge of nature and a preparation for science teaching, was a 
 gradual and methodical one, proceeding by slow steps to an 
 end held long and steadily in view. 
 
 Nor was the share of the first State Normal School in this 
 work of progress an insignificant or indifferent one. Organ- 
 ized in 1857 under a law placing the elements of the natural 
 sciences on the same footing as the other studies of its course, 
 it had contributed its powerful influence, directly and indirectly, 
 for fifteen years, to the education of the teaching body towards 
 this end. By 1860, physiology, chemistry, botany, and geology 
 were taught, — in a somewhat tentative way, it is true, and 
 each but a term, while mathematics got five terms, geography 
 three, and vocal music nine, — but the attempt was clearly re- 
 garded as an experiment. Says Principal Hovey, "We have 
 
very few models in this department. Little is known of the 
 possibility of so simplifying chemistry, for example, as to bring 
 it within the reach of children. * * « The attempt, 
 however, will be honestly made, at least so far as to put our 
 pupil teachers in possession of the leading facts of these sci- 
 ences, and the method of teaching the facts to children which 
 seems to have the largest promise of success. The importance 
 of the subjects would fully justify this course, even if it were 
 not commanded by law." The details of the courses pub- 
 lished show that the methods were not those of the modern 
 science teacher, — a criticism applicable for some time thereaf- 
 ter. Botany was chiefly a study of text and the analysis of 
 plants; the chemistry was apparently poured over the heads of 
 the pupils like a shower bath, and there was no students' 
 laboratory for many years; the physiology was demonstrated 
 to the imagination only; and the physics was taught as a de- 
 partment of mathematics, by deduction from first principles, 
 with a sovereign contempt for apparatus and experiment, not 
 merely implied but vigorously expressed. Zoology was not 
 regularly introduced until after 1872. Graduation theses were 
 required in 1869 on some natural history subject worked out 
 independently by the student. 
 
 To this special work of the Normal School the State 
 Natural History Society largely contributed, — organized as it 
 was only a year later, and having its museum in the Normal 
 building. There Wilber and Holder and Powell and Thompson 
 and Vasey worked, and created a little center of scientific ac- 
 tivity, the spark of whose life has never yet gone out in Illinois. 
 This body of amateurs, as it was at first, and this institution, 
 as their museum later became, stood from the beginning in 
 close relation to the schools. All the Normal men were mem- 
 bers of the Society; Prof. Turner, of Jacksonville, was one of 
 its leaders; the State Teachers' Association met with it at 
 Normal in 1861, in a joint session for the dedication of its hall, 
 and many of the teachers belonged to both organizations; it 
 had for its principal object a natural history survey of the 
 state, the publications of which it was hoped would furnish a 
 suitable foundation for science work in the schools; it regularly 
 assumed, as early as 1868, the duty of supplying natural his- 
 
10 
 
 tory materials to schools prepared to use them; it brought the 
 official geologist and entomologist of the state, and other sci- 
 entific workers, into more or less familiar association with the 
 public school teachers; and it helped especially to interest the 
 outside public in natural history study and instruction. 
 
 And next we come to the State Industrial University. It 
 was late in the field, but was compelled by the necessities of its 
 existence to a vigorous activity in this direction. Organized 
 especially to give instruction in the sciences and arts which 
 underlie modern industrial life, it was evident at once that its 
 attendance must depend largely on the general appreciation of 
 a knowledge of science as a preparation for agriculture and 
 the trades, and that the grade of its work depended immediately 
 upon the previous instruction in the elements of science which 
 its matriculates had received. Since it was, from the nature of 
 the case, directly affiliated with the public schools, if there 
 were no science in them there could none be required for its 
 own entrance examinations, and it must itself do at first the 
 work of an elementary school. Hence its regent and its trus- 
 tees were earnestly active in this matter, and to its influence, I 
 think, far more than to any other one thing, the final form of 
 the law of 1872 was due. The science clause of this law was, 
 in fact, introduced as an amendment* by one of the University 
 trustees, Wilson Flagg, of Madison county (a graduate of 
 Yal^ an amateur botanist, a horticulturist, and an ex-member 
 of the State Board of Agriculture), the chairman of the Sen- 
 ate committee on education at that time. But more important 
 perhaps than this, the University had, most of all and earliest 
 of all, exercised what ive may call a powerful pre-natal infiu- 
 elice in this matter; since the extraordinary campaign for an 
 educatiopal idea, which began with a convention of farmers, un- 
 der Prof. Turner's inspiration in Putnam county in 1851, and 
 ended at Washington in the passage of the land grant act of 
 1862, — since this agitation for the education of the mass of the 
 people towards and not away from their future callings, carried 
 always in its bosom, if not in its arms, the logical consequence 
 that such an education must be had in the public schools 
 
 *The original bill contained, however, a requirement of qualiflca- 
 tlon for the teaching of physiology and the laws of health. 
 
11 
 
 as well as in the university, if it is to affect the welfare of the 
 many and not only of the few. And this, I have come to 
 think, as I have studied the record of the time, was clearly the 
 main line of the movement which resulted in our legal enact- 
 ment. The State Superintendents' reports, the State Normal 
 School, the State Natural History Society, and the other things 
 to be mentioned, were more or less powerful secondary aids; 
 but the main result followed directly from the industrial agita- 
 tion of the fifties. That reaching upward of the masses for 
 more power and more light, which, spreading from Illinois 
 eastward, gave us later the long line of land-grant colleges, 
 and gives us now the State Experiment Stations, gave us also, 
 as a sort of second growth from the seed first sown, the recog- 
 nized acceptance of the natural sciences as a necessary part of 
 the course of study in a true people's school. That this fruit- 
 ful movement arose earlier and went further here than else- 
 where, I attribute to the fact that it 'had here, in Prof. J. B. 
 Turner, an able and devoted leader, who, himself an educated 
 man, had those great human qualities which no learning can 
 overlay, and which gave him access to all classes and power 
 with all. 
 
 Of course I need not say that the schools and teachers, 
 especially the better ones, shared in this steady growth and felt 
 the stimulus of the light and inspiration centered upon them 
 from so many sources. Beginning in 1851, we find a superin- 
 tendent of Stark county saying hopelessly that, desirable as it 
 is, he sees little prospect of a study of science in his schools, 
 and, indeed, that some of his people still object to geography 
 as contrary to the Bible, because it teaches that the world 
 is round instead of having four corners; but in 1872, Prin- 
 cipal Roberts, of Galesburg, says in his presidential address 
 to the State Teachers' Association, that probably all the teach- 
 ers really fitted to teach the sciences were actually teaching 
 them when the new law went into effect. 
 
 Chicago has always gone her own way in these matters, 
 within the state but not of it, and has to-day no natural science 
 in her grammar schools, as I learned lately in response to a cir- 
 cular request for information. In her high schools, however, 
 these subjects have had a place from the beginning, apparatus 
 
12 
 
 for chemistry and for physics heing supplied in 1856 as a part 
 of the original equipment of her first high school. Indeed, in 
 1869 the general introduction of natural history throughout 
 the schools was advocated at some length by the president of 
 the city board, and the examinations required for admission to 
 the high school at that time show that candidates had received 
 some general instruction in the sciences of nature, apparently 
 the object lessons of that day. 
 
 The Cook County Normal, opening in 18*57 with a two 
 years' course, gave object lessons for four terms and taught 
 botany for one and physics for two. In the Peoria County 
 Normal School, botany and physiology were taught in 1872, 
 under Principal White. In the Aurora schools. Principal 
 Jones had introduced in 1868 an elaborate course in natural 
 science, beginning with the first year of the primary, and run- 
 ning through the high school. In the primary school, lessons 
 were given on the human body and on animals and plants; in 
 the intermediate, on the human body and the laws of health and 
 in mineralogy and botany, the last studied with specimens in 
 the pupils' hands. In the high school, more advanced and sys- 
 tematic work was done in botany, zoology, physiology, and 
 physics. The work of this school was elaborately described by 
 Dr. Bateman in his report for 1868, under the title of "a model 
 graded school." In the Carrollton high school, botnay and 
 physiology were taught in 1870 in the first year's course, and 
 chemistry and physics in the second. In 1871 Etheridge pub- 
 lished, as Superintendent of Bureau county, a graded course 
 for his rural schools, in which object lessons ran through all 
 the grades from the second to the sixth, and included some- 
 thing of anatomy and physiology, the zoology of the domestic 
 animals, and the like. 
 
 In this same year two other model courses of instruction 
 were made public; one for the lower grades and one for high 
 schools, the former by White, of the Peoria County Normal, 
 and the latter by Miss Grace Bibb, of the Peoria City High 
 School, afterwards an instructor in the University of Missouri. 
 In White's lower grade program one third of the time of six- 
 to-ten-year pupils was given to oral object lessons; from ten to 
 thirteen year^, one sixth of the time to botany and physiology; 
 
13 
 
 and from fourteen to sixteen years, one ninth of the time to 
 zoology and physics. Two and a half years out of eleven were 
 thus given to natural science, — in a ratio diminishing towards 
 the high school. How different this from the common pre- 
 tence of the present time that the natural sciences are higher 
 branches, to be taught in the high school only! Miss Bibb's 
 four years' English high school course gave more than one 
 third of the time to physiology, botany, physics, chemistry, and 
 geology; and her mixed course more than one fourth. 
 
 Roberts, of Galesburg, in the address already mentioned, 
 allotted one third of the time in the high school to the sciences 
 of nature. 
 
 In the Peoria High School, under Coy, in 1871, collections 
 were made by the pupils, and museum cases were provided. In 
 the Dixon schools the directors required, in that year, all teach- 
 ers employed by them at the time and all candidates for 
 positions there to pass examinations in physics, physiology, and 
 botany, besides the studies required by law. 
 
 In all the abundant writing and discussion of that day, I 
 do not find anywhere a note of discord. There was no opposi- 
 tion, objection, or even criticism of the movement, important 
 enough to show itself in print. 
 
 To follow out this process of the growth and development 
 of opinion, knowledge, and experience, during this period pre- 
 ceding the passage of the amended law; to show how the sub- 
 ject attracted continually greater and more important attention 
 in the teachers' institutes and associations — county and state 
 — in the gatherings of principals and county superintendents, 
 and in the essays and addresses contributed to the two leading 
 educational periodicals of the state — The Illinois Teacher and 
 The Chicago Schoolmaster — would be to describe point by 
 point the gradual dawning of the day, and would leave me no 
 time to speak of the interesting effects which followed when the 
 machinery of the law laid hold of the slowly rising sun, hauled 
 it above the horizon with a single pull, and bade it shine there 
 in full blaze without further loss of time. Some teachers were 
 greatly rejoiced at this miraculous interposition in favor of 
 their hopes and aspirations; but most seemed unmistakably 
 startled, and evidently began to think that it was likely to be a 
 
14 
 
 very warm day. " The natural sciences are upon us, and we 
 must do the best we can," one such is quoted as saying. 
 
 That the law was a surprise to most of the teachers, 
 neither expected nor wished by them, indeed, at the time, is 
 shown especially by this circumstance: The original bill amend- 
 ing the school law of the state (but without the science clause, 
 which was an afterthought) had been introduced in the pre- 
 vious session of the legislature, but not finally acted on; and a 
 copy of this bill, published by State Superintendent Bateman, 
 was widely circulated in 1871 among the leading teachers of 
 the state, to call out an expression of their opinion. It was 
 considered and reported upon by committees of the State 
 Teachers' Association, of the Principals' Association, and of 
 the County Superintendents, and important amendments were 
 made to bring it into accord with their various views; but 
 neither by the State Superintendent himself, nor anywhere in 
 the published correspondence and discussion, so far as I can find, 
 was any mention made of a change in the requirement for the 
 teachers' certificate, or of the introduction of new studies into 
 the common schools. The teachers were working toward this 
 end and preparing for it, but they were not yet ready. This 
 thing was clearly done by others, over their heads, and in ad- 
 vance of their wishes, although not really against them. Let us 
 note especially the fact that the motive to the doing was not 
 wholly the teachers' motive. The beetle that drove the wedge 
 home and struck the blow that split the log was really the prac- 
 tical; these subjects were added to the public school course be- 
 cause it was hoped that a knowledge of them would help the peo- 
 ple to live, and especially that the lot of the countryman and of 
 the workman in towns would be ameliorated if they knew more 
 of the facts and laws of matter and of life. And while this is 
 clearly true, it seems also true that the common interest in the 
 matter was not very great. It was an indefinite and half-hesi- 
 tating sentiment, a diffuse and often ignorant inclination to 
 believe, rather than a positive belief, which was made effective 
 for the purpose it accomplished only because it had been fanned 
 by agitation and focused by the energetic will and vigorous in- 
 tellect of a few popular leaders. The situation was thus uuusu- 
 
15 
 
 ally interesting; and the subject is a fit one for a monograph. 
 I can only briefly describe what followed. 
 
 The somewhat inconsiderate character of the original Flagg 
 amendment is shown by the fact that, as introduced and as it 
 passed the Senate, it made no exception to the requirement that 
 every teacher in the state presenting himself for a state or 
 county certificate must pass an examination in the elements of 
 the natural sciences. A proviso permitting superintendents to 
 issue, at the request of directors, certificates good for a year 
 and in the district only, to teachers otherwise competent but 
 not prepared for science teaching, was introduced as an amend- 
 ment in the House and afterward concurred in by the Senate. 
 These provisional certificates were, however, very naturally re- 
 garded as a makeshift and a badge of disgrace, a pledge of tol- 
 eration only, and to the mass of teachers a full certificate 
 seemed immediately indispensable. They were not content to 
 take the provisional one for a year, and in the meantime to 
 make ready for a genuine examination, but they must have a 
 full certificate before the school year opened. The law went 
 into effect July 1, and the schools generally began in Septem- 
 ber. There were two or three months, consequently, in which 
 to learn four sciences, and, more than that, to learn to teach 
 them;so county institutes had a "boom"-not very seriously af- 
 fected by the fact that there were few competent to teach the 
 new branches in them. The State Institute at Normal was 
 thronged; and there all the sciences were taught, each forty-five 
 minutes a day for three whole weeks — -about eleven hours to a 
 science, in all. The pupils were also advised to read a book, if 
 possible, before coming to this institute. 
 
 The results of this wild work were not always perfect. A 
 friend of mine, who was a village school director at the time, 
 has lately given me an illustration. A teacher fresh from this 
 Normal Institute was conducting an exercise in zoology, while 
 the director sat, book in hand, supervising the same. The 
 teacher read from his Normal note-book to his class something 
 about the candal appendage of an animal. " Isn't that word 
 caudal? " modestly asked the director. "0, " said the startled 
 scientist, "is it caudal in the book?" 
 
16 
 
 It need not be said that the "graduates" from these 
 " courses " usually passed their county examinations and got the 
 coveted full certificate. For the makers of the law had either 
 overlooked one most important point, or else had made a curi- 
 ous assumption. The fact was recogaized that the teacher's 
 qualification must be tested by an examination, but no one 
 was set to examine the examiners. It seems to have been as- 
 sumed that the county superintendent was necessarily and eoc- 
 officio a botanist, a zoologist, a physiologist, and a natural phi- 
 losopher; and that he was also a teacher of all the natural 
 sciences. It may be surmised that the examinations were not 
 usually dangerous, except, possibly, to the well informed. A. 
 lady of my acquaintance told me that a superintendent asked 
 her to which class the turtle belonged. She answered that it 
 was a crustacean, because it had a crust — thinking of pie-crust, 
 probably, with its upper and lower layers and the filling be- 
 tween. " No, " said the superintendent, " it's a mollusk, because 
 it wears a shell." But she got her certificate. 
 
 And this indiscriminate scramble for the counterfeit present- 
 ment of the thing desired, was unfortunately not confined to 
 the vacation work of 1872. I regret to have to record the fact 
 that during the regular sessions of the Normal School a special 
 class was organized of would-be science teachers, who were 
 hustled through all the new branches in a single term. This 
 was done with many self-accusing groans, and certainly with 
 no unworthy motive, but because, all things considered, in the 
 abnormal situation which had been artificially created, it 
 seemed to those responsible the part of practical wisdom so to 
 do. 
 
 Similar considerations must account for the action of some 
 county superintendents, who made haste to renew, before July 
 1, all certificates of the good teachers in the r schools, so that 
 for two years these might be at least nominally qualified for 
 any situation. The Schoolmaster published some outline les- 
 sons in botany. and zoology, two of the former covering about 
 three pages of print, the latter more elaborate, an 1 tliej assured 
 its readers that an eminent botanist had said that any teacher 
 who had learned all which these two lessons contained should 
 be considered entitled to the certificate, so far as botany was 
 
17 
 
 concerned; and the editor said further that a diligent reader of 
 his journal for the year should have no difficulty in passing all 
 the natural science examinations. Even the requirements of 
 the state superintendent's office fell far short of an ideal stand- 
 ard of proficiency. A.n elementary knowledge of zoology, to 
 take an extreme example, was defined to embrace the chief dis- 
 tinguishing characteristics of the four grand divisions of the 
 animal kingdom, a general knowledge of the five vertebrate 
 classes and their principal orders, and some special acquaintance 
 with insects and their chief divisions. 
 
 A single statement from the ninth superintendent's report 
 is eloquent as to the results. During the three months after 
 July 1, 1872, 3,975 teachers were examined in the natural 
 sciences, and 3,114 passed. 
 
 But when this host of smatterers had been safely garnered 
 in the schools, and the worst strain of the sudden pressure had 
 been thus relieved, the work of thorough preparation began, or 
 rather went on at an accelerated pace. 
 
 In one circular after another Dr. Bateman conveyed to 
 teachers and school officers full but concise official directions, 
 mingled with helpful suggestion and intelligent advice; while 
 his next biennial report went like a trumpet call to all corners 
 of the state, summoning the teachers to come up, like an army 
 that had suddenly won an almost unlooked-for victory, and to 
 occupy in force, and once for all, the new regions which had 
 fallen under their control. The seventy-five pages of this 
 report on the natural sciences in the schools deserve to become 
 a classic 
 
 Dr. Gregory also, regent of the university, who, as state 
 superintendent of Michigan, had strongly urged ten years 
 before that the time for the old studies be abridged and the 
 natural sciences be introduced beside them, contributed by 
 lecture, circular, and personal advice, to give right direction to 
 the rapid onward march; while the development of the scien- 
 tific courses in the growing university helped to supply the 
 greatest need of the time, that of trained and intelligent 
 science teachers. The State Normal School at Normal con- 
 tinued its scientific work with the addition of a term of zoology, 
 and with a great improvement in its methods in every branch. 
 
18 
 
 To it was also due the continuance of the Natural History 
 Museum as an independent establishment, after the death of 
 the State Society and the departure of Powell, Vasey, and oth- 
 ers, from the state. It contributed from its funds to the sup- 
 port of the educational work of the museum, giving it shelter, 
 standing, and indorsement in the state when, practically 
 abandoned by its founders, it had little else to go upon, and 
 keeping it alive until an opportunity arose to get for it legal 
 recognition as a separate institution. It also stood behind the 
 two summer schools of natural history held at the museum in 
 1875 and 1876; schools at which Professors Wilder and Barn- 
 ard of Cornell, joined with Burrill of the University, Thomas 
 of the Southern Normal, and the writer, to give instruction 
 for four weeks in zoology and botany to forty or fifty active 
 and enthusiastic teachers. A greater supply and variety of 
 marine objects for dissection were had at these inland schools 
 than at their Penikese predecessor. From this museum (later 
 the State Laboratory of Natural History) large supplies of 
 specimens were sent out, and at the Bloomington meeting of 
 the State Association in 1873, an organization of schools and 
 colleges was formed for the collection and exchange of natural 
 history material, this to pass through the museum at Normal 
 for determination, preparation, and distribution. This work 
 was kept up, the museum duplicates being added to the sets sent 
 out until all the schools participating had respectable cabinets. 
 The educational journals of 1872 and 1873 were very 
 largely given up to a discussion of science teaching; and those 
 who imagine that the new movement went astray because of 
 the ignorance of its leaders, will do well to look at the volumes 
 of The Teacher and The Schoolmaster for those years. While 
 the discussion of general principles sometimes lacked scholar- 
 ship, it was nevertheless sound in the main; and the outlines 
 of work and the formal lessons presented and the courses and 
 detailed methods recommended, were usually the results of solid 
 thinking and successful experience. Another class of helpful 
 papers published at this time consisted of hints for self-help in 
 field work and study, by those whose own experience had taught 
 them how to instruct their fellows. In fact, all the educa- 
 tional institutions and associations of the day were worked at 
 
19 
 
 full speed, vacations and all, to bring the mass of the teaching 
 body up to the requirement of the law. So a great impulse 
 was given to honest and earnest work — there is no doubt of 
 that — and the science movement soon gained genuine strength 
 and impetus enough to successfully endure the strain of the 
 reaction which inevitably came when the slipshod work done 
 by the incompetent began to bear its fruit. In many of the 
 schools presided over by these teachers the sciences went out of 
 the window almost as fast as they came in by the door — for- 
 tunately for such schools, because such teaching as these sub- 
 jects had, could result at best only in an irreparable waste of 
 precious time. 
 
 But time forbids my following the subject out in further 
 detail, and I can only hurriedly sketch the present situation. 
 In the first place, the sciences are hardly in the rural schools at 
 all — those for which it was fondly hoped that they would do 
 the most. This is partly due to a change in the law itself, made 
 in 1874, chiefly in the interest of the low-grade teacher, limit- 
 ing the requirement of these branches to the certificate of the 
 first grade only. Most of the country teachers hold certificates 
 of the second grade and cannot teach the sciences if they would. 
 We have to reckon also with popular ignorance and with a 
 sluggish public sentiment with regard to any aspect of the 
 matter save the financial one. Among the better informed 
 there is some uneasiness on this subject, and you can get a vote 
 at any general country gathering favorable to the teaching of 
 these branches in the country schools, if you ask for it, and be- 
 cause you ask for it, unless, indeed, it occurs to some one that 
 this would raise the teachers' wages, and then you will proba- 
 bly have to fight for what you get. The sciences are not 
 there, in short, because the country teachers cannot teach 
 them, and because the average rural tax-payer does not care 
 enough for them to be willing to pay their present cost. 
 In the cities and villages of the better class the elements of 
 these branches seem pretty firmly fixed in the high school 
 course, but it is only the elements, and the work actually done 
 belongs usually in the grammar school or still lower down. 
 In now and then a town or city school, as at Aurora, Decatur, 
 and Cairo, there is a graded and well-knit science course 
 2 
 
20 
 
 throughout. I have some statistics on these matters which 
 there is not time to give. 
 
 As to methods, they evidently differ widely. The lineal de- 
 scendant and successor of the teacher who got his science in three 
 weeks is still to be found in the school room, and he may teach 
 from the book alone, but even he knows better as a rule; and 
 where there is time and talent for the work, the teaching is 
 often excellent. The right general ideas are common property, 
 but they lack fullness and detail — in short, scholarship; and 
 have not been worked out in systematic, well-knit, correlated 
 methods and courses, adapted to the country school and to 
 the various grades in city and town. The motive to the 
 work seems now almost wholly pedagogical, and its economic 
 basis has chiefly fallen away. This is partly due, I think, to 
 that sluggishness of popular interest already spoken of, and 
 partly to the fact that the actual work of the school has not 
 commonly been directed to the economic end, and so the utili- 
 tarian results hoped for have not followed. The professional 
 feeling of the teacher has sometimes kept him from this, and 
 often he simply has not known how. 
 
 All this has, perhaps, a discouraging sound, as a report of 
 progress after seventeen years, and yet it offers us this very 
 great encouragement. The whole matter is now practically 
 in the teachers' hands; and we are vastly better prepared in 
 every way to meet the difficulties, to solve the problems, to ap- 
 ply and develop methods, to arouse the public interest, and to 
 justify our work by its results, than we were in 1872. Let us 
 natural science teachers band ourselves together, ground our- 
 selves and each other, so far as we have not already done so, in 
 a sound pedagogy based on a sound psychology; study the 
 methods of foreign lands, where our subjects have been longer 
 taught than here; agree, if possible, on courses and methods 
 for the country schools and for each class of the graded school; 
 examine and report upon the science work in our various towns, 
 in our counties, and in our congressional districts; publish as 
 fast as we are sure that our work is good and sound and true, 
 and not before; and so lay together and build up, from year to 
 year, by the method of cooperative effort, a solidly-based and 
 well-wrought scheme of science work for the public schools of 
 Illinois. 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF NATURAL SCIENCE 
 IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 
 
 CHAS. DE GAEMO, PH.D., NORMAL, ILL. 
 
 (A) General Principles. 
 
 1. Like all other studies, natural science has an inherent 
 value as knowledge, and a formative yalue as a means of men- 
 tal discipline. 
 
 2. The most ef&eient method of teaching it must be de- 
 termined by an analysis of those mental activities which lead 
 to the best results in mental discipline. Further, that part of 
 natural science which should be taught in elementary schools 
 must also depend largely upon what can be made valuable for 
 discipline, since this work is designed mainly to furnish a solid 
 basis for all our future knowledge. 
 
 3. The first question to be decided, therefore, is, How does 
 the child- mind act when study produces its best results in mental 
 discipline? and the second is. What is the special function of 
 natural science in this activity, and how can it best be realized? 
 
 4. Three difEerent phases of thought may be distinguished 
 in the study of any subject: 1. The Stage of Observation. — 
 The acquirement and apprehension of new facts, more or less 
 individual in their nature. — What is not acquired is nothing to 
 mind; and what is not understood, to some extent, at least, may 
 as well remain^Tinknown. In elementary education especially, 
 new elements of knowledge must be largely concrete, or indi- 
 vidual facts, for the child is not able to apprehend underived 
 generalizations. 2. The Stage of Generalization. — The con- 
 scious derivation of generalizations from these concrete data of 
 knowledge. — Unless the concrete elements of knowledge are 
 brought into relation, they remain isolated in the mind, and 
 without significance. Generalization gives us classes and laws 
 in natural science, definitions and principles in mathematics, 
 rules of action in ethics, laws and principles in political and 
 economic life. Without generalization knowledge would be a 
 
22 
 
 wilderness of unrelated facts, in which the mind would he con- 
 demned to endless and aimless wandering. 3. The Stage of 
 Application. — The application of derived generalizations to a 
 wide field of appropriate new particulars. — This is illustrated 
 in the application of a rule in arithmetic to a large number of 
 problems. Without such application, any generalization would 
 remain vague and indefinite; it would be a form with but slight 
 content, nor would it be long remembered. A generalization 
 not made by the pupil is to him an empty form; an unapplied 
 generalization is a useless one. 
 
 (B) Educational Value of Natural Science, as tested by the 
 foregoing Principles. 
 
 I. — OBSERVATIOlir. 
 
 1. It is universally conceded that the stage of observation 
 in learning is an important one, since all our knowledge starts 
 with and presupposes the data furnished by the senses. The 
 question is. What shall be observed in school? The ideas 
 gained through the senses are symbolized in language by 
 words. A word, however, partakes of the nature of a general- 
 ization, since it stands for it; it is individual, too, since it may 
 be perceived by the senses, and since it applies to an individual 
 thing. Words themselves may, therefore, to a limited extent, 
 be studied and observed as individual or concrete things (in- 
 flection, etymology, spelling, etc.), but mostly they must be re- 
 garded as symbols of generalizations. If, then, the observa- 
 tion stage of thought is to receive the attention its importance 
 demands, there is no efficient way but to begin with the study of 
 things, and preeminently with the things of nature. These 
 are all individual and concrete, whereas words are symbols, 
 and, for the most part, symbols of generalizations. 
 
 2. (a) The most vital thing in observation is the training 
 of the senses. This does not mean that the child's senses are to 
 become better mechanical instruments. Nature has placed this 
 matter mostly beyond our control. It does mean two things: 
 (1), the habit of search for the facts of nature, and (2), a 
 quickened perception of their significance. Then, to see well is 
 not so much a mechanical, as a psychical act. In this sense, he 
 
23 
 
 alone sees who apprehends, (h) We must, therefore, begin 
 with the thoughtful observation of a single natural object, 
 and on no account with some cut and dried classification of a 
 text-book; i. e., this inspiration must be inductive, at least 
 while types are being learned. The object itself should be 
 shown in all cases where practicable; otherwise good pictures 
 may be used ( Prang's Natural History Charts). Objects 
 which cannot be produced or represented in pictures, should 
 be reserved for later study, or, at most, read about in elemen- 
 tary books. Elementary science without objects is dry and 
 unprofitable, (c) Not only must objects be carefully observed, 
 but they must be described, since thought acquires clearness 
 and precision by expression. A general plan of description is 
 helpful, (d) In physics and chemistry, also, instruction must 
 begin with the observation and apprehension of natural phe- 
 nomena, not with laws. The simple experiment is the teach- 
 er's best pedagogical device for bringing natural phenomena to 
 the attention of the children. 
 
 n. — GENEKAxizATioiir (Inductiofi). 
 
 1. The peculiarity of elementary natural science as a 
 means for teaching pupils to make valid generalizations lies in 
 its concreteness and simplicity. Suppose the pupil has a hat- 
 full of leaves or a large number of insects at hand for classifi- 
 cation. There is at once a search for common characteristics 
 as a basis. At first the classifications will be made according 
 to likenesses most obvious to the child. A question by the 
 teacher will lead to a closer observation and comparison, and a 
 new arrangement of classes. This may be continued until the 
 pupil finds the true scientific basis of classification. At every 
 step of the progress the objects have been at hand, so that a 
 concrete test of the validity of the generalization has at all 
 times been possible. The same is true of physics, with this 
 difference, that the generalizations are more abstract and the 
 verification more difficult. 
 
 2. To be good for anything as a basis of mental discipline 
 in the formation of correct habits of inductive reasoning, or 
 of generalization, the objects themselves must be present. To 
 begin with the memorizing of ready-made generalizations, 
 
24 
 
 whether furnished by the text-book or by the teacher, is to 
 sacrifice one of the main purposes of elementary science in- 
 struction; viz., the habit of making valid generalizations so far 
 as this subject is concerned. 
 
 m. — APPLICATION. 
 
 1. In this stage of thought we find the bridge between 
 the inner world of abstract ideas and the outer concrete world 
 of things. He is the most successful man who is best able to 
 embody his thought in action. The elementary stages of nat- 
 ural science furnish the pupil abundant incentive and opportu- 
 nity for applying the generalizations, or abstractions, of thought 
 to the concrete world of new particulars. After the proper 
 classification of the leaves or insects above mentioned has been 
 made, every new leaf or insect challenges examination and 
 classification. When a few fundamental laws in physics have 
 been discovered, every mechanical effect invites explanation. 
 As in the stages of observation and generalization, so here, the 
 peculiar virtue of a study of elementary science lies chiefly in 
 the fact that it keeps the mental world in contact with the 
 physical, thus tending strongly to prevent that divorce between 
 the realm of ideas and that of practical affairs, so often seen 
 in those who have long lived in the world of ideas alone. 
 
 2. It can easily be seen that here, too, if natural science 
 is to have any disciplinary effect, so far as application to the 
 concrete world is concerned, it must deal with objects them- 
 selves. 
 
 (C) Material. 
 
 1. It does not fall within the scope of this paper to pre- 
 pare an elementary course of study in natural science, but 
 rather to run the main lines, along which instruction should 
 move, as indicated by a pedagogical analysis of the subject. 
 The most superficial examination shows the folly of allowing 
 elementary natural science to consist in memorizing zoological 
 and botanical classifications as presented in school text-books. 
 This must be condemed on all three counts, — ready-made 
 schemes of classification, even when their bases are mentioned, 
 furnish no material for observation, hence are useless as a 
 
25 
 
 foundation for ideas; they furnish no drill in inductive reason- 
 ing, since the generalizations are memorized from a scheme at 
 the beginning; they furnish no incentive to application, for 
 they have been learned and recited as if they had nothing to 
 do with actual nature. A thoughtful mind might possibly get 
 some discipline in thinking through the mental movements of 
 the author when he arrived at his results, but to the ordinary 
 child such study is as barren as the method of teaching is easy. 
 
 2. We have found that every stage of the mental move- 
 ment in efficient learning has demanded the actual objects. 
 How can one observe without anything to examine; how can 
 a child reason to valid generalizations in natural science if he 
 has no individual things to reason from; and how can a child 
 be trained to make constant and ready application of the 
 results of his reasoning in natural science if no objects are ever 
 present? 
 
 3. Lack of time and knowledge on the part of the teach- 
 er, and lack of material of certain kinds, may make it very de- 
 sirable that that which can be taught from the objects them- 
 selves should be supplemented by information gained from 
 elementary science books. Of these there are now a goodly 
 number admirably adapted to this purpose. 
 
 4. The objects chosen should be such as can be found on 
 all sides, and such as can be most easily apprehended (domestic 
 animals, insects, common flowers, leaves, table-salt, etc.; not 
 infusoria or other miscroscopic forms). In physics and chem- 
 istry we should choose what is attractive and easy to under- 
 stand, and first of all that which helps to understand and to 
 explain the most common phenomena; also what is important 
 in domestic life and in manufacture (the lever, the cord and 
 pulley, wheel and axle, etc.; the construction of domestic im- 
 plements; the ventilation of rooms, etc). 
 
BOTANY IN THE HIGH SCHOOL. 
 
 W. H. HATCH, SUPERINTENDENT MOLINE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 It is needless, with the company here to-day, to urge the 
 claims of botany to an important place in the high school cur- 
 riculum. The questions that present themselves to us are, 
 what to teach and how to teadh it. 
 
 The end to be attained should be clear in the mind of the 
 teacher before beginning any work. The analysis of fifty to a 
 hundred species, or the preparation of a herbarium of like 
 number, is, I am glad to say, no longer considered all there is 
 to be done in the study of botany in secondary schools. There 
 is a life, with all its beautiful phenomena, a physiology, with 
 all its questions of function. The student finds that the sub- 
 ject of study is life. The characteristic of a living thing is 
 that it has the power to respond to external influences. The 
 means and methods by which it does this, furnish the basis for 
 work in biology. Life, and consequent growth and repro- 
 duction, furnish the problems to be solved. The high school 
 student should become familiar with the simpler phenomena 
 of plant life, such as the effects of heat, light, moisture, and 
 gravity, the appearance and work of chlorophyl, the plant 
 cell, tissues and their functions, assimilation, respiration, and 
 methods of reproduction. With these objects in view, how 
 shall we proceed ? 
 
 Dr. De Garmo has spoken in his paper of the three phases 
 of thought in science work : observation, generalization, ap- 
 plication. He has also said that " to begin with the memoriz- 
 ing of ready-made generalizations, whether furnished by the 
 text-book or by the teacher, is to sacrifice one of the main 
 purposes of elementary science instruction; viz., the habit of 
 making valid generalizations so far as this subject is concerned." 
 Observation must precede all else. The student must then, 
 first of all, be brought face to face with the facts and phenom- 
 ena. Later he may receive facts second hand, but not in the 
 first and most important steps. 
 
27 
 
 . A late writer has well said that in the beginning work in 
 natural science the text-book that can be used by the student 
 without the object to be studied before him, has no place in 
 our secondary schools. The work must begin with the object 
 in the hand of the student. I emphasize this, since so many of 
 our high school courses call for the beginning of botany in the 
 winter, or at least before plants appear in the spring. I am 
 convinced that the spring is the time to begin. All nature 
 is awaking from her long sleep, and the children are in- 
 tensely interested in that which should form a large part of 
 our study — growth. The average lad is intensely interested 
 in all the manifestations of life that come under his notice ; 
 and when something new presents itself he wants to know 
 what the thing does, how it does it, and what it does it for. 
 
 These are the problems of vegetable as well as animal physi- 
 ology in school-boy vernacular, and to successfully instruct 
 the mind of youth we must recognize the interrogation points 
 that stand out with such prominence. 
 
 Another reason for beginning in the spring: While I do 
 not think the order is important, I am convinced that the work- 
 should begin with the entire plant as a unit — the individual. 
 The work may begin with the lowest orders and work up to 
 the highest. There are many good teachers who prefer this, 
 and it may work well where the pupils have sufficient maturity 
 to overcome the many difficulties presented at the beginning. 
 The method is far more important than the order. In his 
 first steps there is danger of too much rather than too little 
 direction. The average student, Polonius-like, can be made 
 to see almost anything, especially under the microscope. We 
 want, first of all, careful, accurate, and honest observers. 
 
 The books to be used are of three kinds: 
 
 1. The working manual, which permits the child to pro- 
 ceed only with the object before him. 
 
 2. The library of reference, containing special books on 
 the various departments of the subject. 
 
 3. His note book, which will contain the results of his 
 own research, supplemented by his lectures and reading. 
 
 A method that has been tried and found successful is al- 
 ways of more value than a theory that has found its way no 
 
28 
 
 further than paper. All work suggested in the following out- 
 lines has been tested in the class room. 
 
 Please remember that we are dealing with children begin- 
 ning high school, age fourteen and fifteen. No preliminary 
 work with book has been done. The entire plant is placed before 
 the pupil. In the choice of material we are compelled to use 
 what we can get. Our first plant is far from typical. I am 
 not sure, however, that there is not a gain in this in the end, 
 as the student is introduced to facts, not theories, and he soon 
 learns that most important lesson, viz., the danger of general- 
 izing from a single fact. We use our earliest blossoming 
 plant, the Hepatica, or Anemone acutiloba. 
 
 I will give the first simple outline in full. 
 (Each child has an entire plant.) 
 
 1. The thickened stem (root-stalk). 
 
 2. The Fibrous Roots growing downward from the stem. 
 
 3. The Leaves. 
 
 4. The Flowers on the summit of branches of the stem. 
 
 I. THE STEM. 
 
 1. From what part of the stem do the roots grow? the leaves? 
 
 2. Beginning at the lower end, remove the roots and leaves. 
 
 Notice in the axils of some of the leaves, branches 
 bearing flowers. Remove them. Lay the parts care- 
 fully aside. 
 
 3. Remove the scales on the upper part of the stem and find 
 
 the growing end. 
 
 II. THE ROOTS. 
 
 1. Note (a) their shape; (b) their color. 
 
 2. Do they branch? 
 
 3. Compare them with the leaves in length and number. 
 
 4. The roots are: 
 
 (a) Hold-fasts; i.e., they support the plant and fasten 
 
 it in the soil. 
 
 (b) Feeders; i.e., they collect nutriment from the soil. 
 
29 
 
 III. THE FOLIAGE LEAP. 
 
 1. Note the parts of the leaf: 
 
 (a) The stalk or petiole. 
 (h) The expanded portion, the blade. 
 (c) A pair of appendages at the base of the petiole, 
 stipules. 
 
 2. .Draw the leaf, naming the parts. 
 
 3. Did this leaf grow this season? (Young leaves will be 
 
 found starting from the stem.) ♦ 
 
 IV. THE FLOWER. 
 
 1. Note that the flower is borne on a branch of the stem, the 
 
 flower stalk or peduncle. 
 
 2. Note three green leaves on the peduncle a little below the 
 
 flower. Pick one and compare in size and shape with 
 the foliage leaf. 
 A small leaf on a peduncle is called a bract. Draw. 
 
 3. Note the leaves of the flower, the floral envelopes. 
 How many? Draw one and compare in size, shape, and 
 
 color with the foliage leaf and bract. 
 
 4. Within the floral envelopes find two sets of organs; the 
 
 outer called stamens, and the inner, pistils. 
 (a) The two parts of the stamen are the stalk or fila- 
 ment, and the yellow anther. 
 Draw and name parts. 
 (h) Examine with glass the pistil; note the enlarged 
 base, the ovary; the upper, contracted portion, 
 the style; and the tip or stigma. 
 Draw and name parts. Pick open an ovary and find 
 the young seed, the ovule. 
 
 POINTS FOR STUDY. 
 
 The stem is the main axis of the plant. 
 The stem terminates in a growing point. 
 Members of the stem are branches. 
 Appendages of the stem are: 
 (a) Roots; (h) Leaves. 
 What kind of leaves are found on the stem ? 
 
30 
 
 In a similar manner we treat several of the familiar spring- 
 blossoming plants, choosing such as will best familiarize the 
 pupils with the parts of the plant and its method of growth. 
 
 At any convenient time after the dissection of a few 
 plants, one or two lessons are given in the use of the analyt- 
 ical tables; the analysis being made from their notes. Expe- 
 rience shows that but little attention need thereafter be given 
 to analysis, except to see that the results are correct, as -the 
 pupils carry it on from choice. 
 
 The first work of the fall is a careful dissection of the 
 sunflower, introducing the student to Compositse, after which 
 the average boy or girl usually undertakes the classification of 
 the asters and solidagos with all the guileless confidence imag- 
 inable, but soon retires from the conflict vanquished, learning 
 a wholesome lesson in his defeat. 
 
 At this time and in the spring he undertakes the further 
 study of plant anatomy and physiology. He makes a study of 
 the fibro-vascular system, using first the plantain, in which the 
 bundles afe readily traced and easily removed. In the root- 
 stalk their arrangement and shape are easily made out. This 
 is supplemented by the examination of the bundles in various 
 dicotyls. Their location and plan of distribution are asso- 
 ciated with their function. The meristem tissue is shown by 
 carefully peeling the bark from twigs of woody growth. The 
 comparison is then made with the arrangements of bundles in 
 monocotyls, using Trillium, etc. 
 
 The leaf affords an excellent opportunity for the study of 
 the relation of structure and function. I will give in full the 
 outline as used. 
 
 LEAVES. 
 
 The cultivated geranium leaf was used in the preparation 
 of this study, but others may be used in the dissection. Nearly 
 all of this work may be done in the winter. 
 
 I. THE STRUCTURE OF THE LEAF. 
 1. Notice: 
 
 (a) The expanded portion, the blade. 
 
 (h) The frame-work, composed of ribs and veins. 
 
 (c) The foot-stalk, petiole (sometimes wanting). 
 
31 
 
 2. With a needle, tear off some of the thin skin, epidermis, 
 
 that covers the blade. Does it also cover the petiole? 
 
 3. Peel off carefully a piece of the epidermis from the lower 
 
 surface of the leaf; examine under one-fourth inch ob- 
 jective; 
 
 (a) It is made up of a layer of cells of irregular shape. 
 (h) Note the hairs, composed of lengthened cells 
 placed end to end. 
 
 (c) Find small openings (stomata) in the epidermis. 
 
 (See figure of stomata in any botany.) 
 
 (d) Draw, showing cells, hair, and stomata. 
 What is the color of the epidermis? 
 
 4. Soak a portion of the green leaf in alcohol. The alcohol 
 
 is colored green. This green coloring matter in plants is 
 chlorophyl. Mount a thin vertical section of the leaf 
 and find the chlorophyl grains (small rounded bodies). 
 Use J-in. objective. 
 
 Some of these were probably seen during examination of 
 the epidermis. (If desired at this point, a more extended study 
 of chlorophyl may be made, using a plant of moss. ) 
 
 5. Split the petiole and notice the white threads running 
 
 through its entire length. These are the fibro-vascu- 
 lar bundles. 
 
 (a) Trace the bundles into the veins of the leaf by 
 splitting the petiole and veins. 
 
 (h) Examine (under ^in. obj.) a thin longitudinal sec- 
 tion of the petiole. Note that the bundles are 
 composed of long ducts of different appearance, 
 some of them with spiral bands. 
 
 (c) Some of these bands may be drawn out as spiral 
 threads if the petiole be carefully pulled apart. 
 
 6. In the above study we have observed that 
 
 (a) The leaf is a thin layer of cellular tissue consisting 
 
 of chlorophyl-bearing cells. 
 (h) This cellular tissue is covered on both sides by an 
 
 epidermis. 
 
32 
 
 (c) Through this epidermis are openings (stomata) to 
 
 the outside air. They are more numerous on 
 the under side. 
 
 (d) Numerous ducts run from all parts of the leaf 
 
 through the veins and petiole to the stem. 
 
 II. THE FUNCTIONS OP LEAVES. 
 
 The principal work of the leaf is to form starch from 
 carbon dioxide (COj) and water (H2O). This process 
 is called assimilation. 
 
 1. The C O2 is contained in the air, which enters the 
 
 leaf through the stomata. 
 
 2. The water comes from the roots through the walls 
 
 of the wood cells and the ducts. 
 There is a continous evaporation of water through 
 the stomata, and a continuous flow of water is 
 kept up through the plant. 
 
 3. When the sunlight shines on the chlorophyl it de- 
 
 composes the C O2 and Hj 0. Some oxygen es- 
 capes and the remaining elements unite and form 
 starch (Cu H20 0,o). Chlorophyl has no power to 
 do this except in the presence of light. 
 
 4. This starch is afterward changed to glucose, inu- 
 
 lin, etc., the organic substances of which plants 
 are composed. ( This process is called metastasis. ) 
 Simple experiments illustrating these points may 
 be found in Bessey's Briefer Course, pp. 75-77 and 
 85-86. The teacher should direct the pupil which 
 to perform. 
 
 III. THE FORM OF THE LEAVES AND THEIR 
 ARRANGEMENT UPON THE STEM. 
 
 From the structure and functions of leaves we can deter- 
 mine the laws which govern their various forms and ar- 
 rangement. 
 
33 
 
 LEAVES ARE ARRANGED 
 (a) To expose a large surface to the action of sunlight. 
 (h) To allow free circulation of air among the leaves. 
 
 (c) To allow the blade to be tossed about by the wind, 
 
 as this assists the circulation of air and thus in- 
 creases the evaporation of water. 
 
 (d) To afford a strong frame-work for the blade and 
 
 allow the ducts to communicate with all parts. 
 
 Notice the application of these laws: 
 
 (a) To the poplar. — Pick some leafy twigs. Turn 
 them upside down on a small table and spread out 
 the leaves. They about fill the space without 
 overlapping. The petioles are long and flattened 
 laterally. 
 
 This makes the leaves sensitive to the slightest 
 breeze. (Quaking aspen). 
 The long mid-vein gives off branches which con- 
 tinually divide until the whole surface of the leaf 
 is finely reticulated. 
 
 (h) To the grass. — Grass usually grows in tufts and 
 the leaves are long and narrow. Why ? Notice 
 the long attenuated apices and how they move in 
 the wind, 
 
 (c) To the plantain. — Here there is a rosette of 
 
 leaves about the stem near the ground. The 
 flower stalks are naked and do not shade the 
 leaves. The petioles are broad, allowing motion 
 only up and down. 
 Compare the dandelion and other similar plants. 
 
 (d) To the catnip. — The lower leaves are largest and 
 
 their petioles are largest. Each pair is at right an- 
 gles to the next above or below. Try to insert a 
 leaf on a catnip stem and not have it shaded by 
 one already there ? Note that the catnip leaf is 
 notched on the margin. The veins run into the 
 points. It is very common for the margin of 
 leaves to be notched between the ends of the 
 veins. The larger points will usually be at the 
 end of the larger veins. 
 
34 
 
 (e) To the butternut.— The leaves are large on this 
 
 tree, but each is divided into a number of leaflets 
 to allow the air to circulate. Such division 
 of large leaves is common, and such leaves are 
 said to be compound in distinction from those 
 with a single blade, simple leaves. 
 
 (f) Go into the woods or garden and apply these laws 
 
 to any plants you find and bring the results o£ 
 your observations to class. 
 
 3. Many special causes determine the forms of leaves in par- 
 
 ticular plants. 
 
 Note the leaves of a pea. They end with a tendril to ena- 
 ble the climbing plant to cling to its support. 
 
 The pitcher-shape leaves of the pitcher plant are adapted 
 to hold water and to capture insects. (Gray, p. 65.) 
 The reason for peculiar forms should be sought. Read 
 Gray, pp. 62-65; Bessey, pp. 269-275. 
 
 4. The form of leaves varies even in the same species and the 
 
 same individual, but is constant enough to afford valu- 
 able characters for the determination of species and is 
 used for this purpose. It becomes necessary, therefore, 
 to gain some acquaintance with the terms used in de- 
 scribing leaves. 
 
 IV. HOW LEAVES PROTECT THEMSELVES. 
 
 Dangers threaten leaves from 
 
 1. Depredations of insects, etc. 
 
 2. Too much water. 
 
 3. Too rapid evaporation. 
 
 4. Too strong light. 
 
 The means used by the leaves for protection are the epi- 
 dermis and its appendages — hairs, prickles, glands, and 
 stings. Their uses may be determined by the follow- 
 ing observations : 
 
35 
 
 1. Strip the epidermis from a leaf of live-forever and hang it 
 
 in the sun by the side of one that retains the epidermis. 
 Note the rate of drying. What is the use of the epider- 
 mis to this leaf ? 
 
 2. Examine a thistle and a nettle. How do they differ in the 
 
 means of protection from animals ? 
 
 3. Notice the curling of the leaver of a tree in strong sun- 
 
 light. How does the position assumed protect them 
 from the sunlight ? 
 
 4. Dip leaves of different kinds in water. 
 
 Is there any difference in the ease with which the surface 
 may be made wet ? 
 
 (See Sachs's "Physiology of Botany," p. 117.) 
 
 5. Notice the white powder covering the leaves of many wil- 
 
 lows. Of what use is this ? 
 
 6. Examine hairy plants. Are the hairs more numerous in 
 
 young or in old organs ? Which need the more pro- 
 tection? Is the upper or the under surface more hairy? 
 Why ? ( Hairs protect the stomata but hinder the ac- 
 cess of sunlight to the chlorophyl.) 
 
 7. How does the cactus defend itself ? 
 
 8. Compare the taste of different leaves — grass, oak, worm- 
 
 wood, etc. Does the taste of the leaf ever afford pro- 
 tection ? From what ? 
 
 9. Carry these observations as far as possible and write 
 
 results in your note book. 
 
 Many of the interesting questions of life may be studied 
 in such a plant as Marchantia polymorpha. The student, with 
 plant in hand, has placed before him such questions as these: 
 Why is the stem horizontal ? 
 Why are the pedicels vertical ? 
 In attempting to answer these questions he finds that the 
 liverwort is sensitive to light and gravity. What organs 
 place themselves parallel to the direction of light and gravity ? 
 What transverse ? He compares the upper and under sides 
 3 
 
36 
 
 of the stem and brings out dorso-ventral structure. This 
 structure is compared with that of the vertical organs, and 
 radial structure is developed. He seeks illustrations of 
 dorso-ventral and radial structure in the various familiar plants. 
 Do they correspond in position with like organs in the Mar- 
 chantia ? He develops the law of position in relation to the 
 forces of light and gravity. He then makes a careful study 
 of the stem, and, using J-inch objective, finds the stomata with 
 their guard cells. By cross section he finds the air spaces com- 
 municating with the stomata, and the chlorophyl located nearer 
 the upper surface. In his study of the leaf he has learned of 
 the process of assimilation. He is therefore prepared to con- 
 sider such questions as these: 
 
 The presence of great quantities of chlorophyl indicates 
 what function for the stem ? Why is the stem flat ? 
 
 Which surface is the chlorophyl near ? 
 
 On which surface are the stomata ? Why ? What is the 
 use of the air spaces ? 
 
 The plan of this plant is then compared to that of a plant 
 of moss, in which the chlorophyl-bearing organs are lifted into 
 the air and spread out by the stem. The two plans are then 
 compared as to their economy. 
 
 One of the most interesting lessons that I have seen the 
 class undertake is intended to illustrate the adaptation of means 
 to accomplish certain purposes. It is a study of cross fertiliza- 
 tion as illustrated by the pansy, and was suggested by Sachs 
 in his "Physiology of Botany." The pupils are supplied with 
 the flower only. A dissection shows all the parts and their 
 shape. They observe that the spur is suspended and that the 
 cluster of anthers part sufficiently to allow the pollen to fall 
 into the groove leading into the spur. They see the filaments 
 projecting into the spur and forming glands for the secretion 
 of nectar. Then taking a fresh flower, the dissecting needle 
 is thrust into the groove as a bee would thrust its proboscis 
 in search of nectar. The needle, carefully withdrawn, brings 
 with it some of the pollen. It is inserted into another flower 
 and the student observes that the lip on one side of the stigma 
 wipes ofE part of the pollen and causes it to fall into the de- 
 pression in the stigma. When the needle is withdrawn he ob- 
 
37 
 
 serves that the same lip prevents the pollen from falling on the 
 stigma of its own flower. Thus cross fertilization is secured. 
 I believe that such lessons as these will lead the student not 
 only to observe carefully but to seek reasons for what he sees. 
 The rough question of the boy "What's that for?" is a per- 
 tinent question to his mind and one that we do well not to 
 ignore. 
 
PEDAGOGICAL CONTENTS OF ZOOLOGY. 
 
 S. A. FOEBES. 
 
 The question whose discussion I wish to open to-day is 
 that which every one must answer first o£ all who has to 
 arrange a school course in zoology : What part of the subject 
 matter of that science is best adapted to the teacher's special 
 ends? 
 
 The aim of the zoologist is to form, as nearly as possible, 
 a complete and accurate picture of the animal life of the earth, 
 to exhibit its internal relations and those to nature at large, 
 and to account for it by tracing its history in general and in 
 detail and by ascertaining the causes which gave it being and 
 form. A great part of the motive to the labor lavished on this 
 subject is the commanding interest of the including subject 
 of life in general, its laws, its origin, and its destiny. The pur- 
 suit of this science may tax to its utmost, it seems to me, every 
 power of the mind, and the knowledge of life it leads to has a 
 great and primary value and interest to us all. It will not do, 
 consequently, to look on it as an apparatus for mental gymnas- 
 tics only, and neither will it do to look on it, for our purposes, 
 as a body of valuable knowledge and nothing else. We must 
 see both what it contains that our pupils ought to know, and 
 what the pursuit of it requires that they ought to learn to do. 
 As a body of knowledge, I would divide it according to its 
 relations to the labors, the pleasures, the conduct, and the 
 thought of man, — according to its industrial, its emotional, its 
 ethical, and its intellectual values. 
 
 On the industrial value of zoology I speak with the feeling 
 derived from long experience. It is true, for example, in my 
 judgment, that the insects of the state of Illinois derive as 
 large a profit from the agriculture of this great agricultural 
 state as do the farmers themselves, It is probably true that 
 they cost the state at least half as much as the whole system of 
 its public schools, and a very large percentage of this great loss 
 
39 
 
 might certainly be prevented, if we could bring the economic 
 facts of this one department of zoology into the store of com- 
 mon knowledge at the command of every pupil in the town and 
 country school. That we fall far short of this requirement, I 
 have evidence every time that I address a gathering of farmers 
 or horticulturists. A large farmer of this state, a gentleman of 
 education, and a leader in farmers' organizations, mistook not 
 long ago, in my presence, the plum curculio for the chinch 
 bug. The Hessian fly is not known at sight in the adult stage, 
 or in the main features of its biography, to one in. hundreds of 
 those who suffer pitifully from its ravages. The simplest ele- 
 ments of entomological instruction, put in the plainest of 
 English speech merely confuse the average listener, so unac- 
 customed is he to facts or ideas drawn from this department of 
 knowledge. It is not beneath the dignity of the public school, 
 or of the teacher of the public school, to help to lift the burden 
 of such destructive ignorance from the minds of the largest 
 and most important class of the people of this state. So 1 think 
 v^ should list, as important knowledge, certainly to be closely 
 scanned by us in drawing up our courses in zoology, all matter 
 concerning especially the birds, the mammals, the fishes, and 
 the insects of the state, their distinguishing characters, their 
 biographies, their habits, their relations to nature generally and 
 especially to man, an acquaintance with which would be directly 
 or indirectly useful to the average citizen. 
 
 It is the defect of the more modern laboratory method in 
 biology that it tends to make near-sighted minds. One may 
 keep his eye at the microscope so constantly and so long that 
 he cannot see without that instrument. I know zoologists 
 who must have nature boiled in corrosive sublimate solution 
 and fried in paraffine and sliced by a microtome before they 
 care for it. There is little probability that matters will go to 
 this extreme in a public school, and yet they may be easily 
 made to tend too far that way. The children must be drawn 
 towards and not away from the woods and fields and waters, 
 and must be led to see more clearly that nature live-s and feels 
 and acts, and links herself to human interest and sympathy in 
 the strongest and the subtlest ways; that a man cut ofE from 
 fellowship with the creatures of the open air is like a tree 
 
40 
 
 deprived of all its lateral roots and trimmed to a single branch. 
 He may grow down and up, but lie cannot grow out. His 
 resources of enjoyment are so narrowed that he is often an 
 object of pity when seen away from the city street. The ordi- 
 nary tourist in our national park — one of the loveliest spots on 
 earth— rushes from hot spring to geyser and from geyser to 
 caQon and away again behind six-horse teams, often grumbling 
 then that there is not a locomotive to whisk him about; and if 
 he lingers at all by that lovely wayside, it is only to fish. It is 
 not creditable that their education should leave our well-bred 
 men and women so blind and deaf to the significance and 
 beauty of the world of life. The greater part of the emotional, 
 the aesthetic value of zoology is lost if the door of the class- 
 room is shut. A personal knowledge of the habits and activi- 
 ties of animals, and a habit of a sympathetic observation of 
 them, are very valuable elements in the result of the skillful 
 teaching of a well-selected course. 
 
 And if to these we are able to add the clear perception of 
 the unity of organic nature, which adds to every part some 
 portion of the interest belonging to the whole, which accus- 
 toms the mind to travel quickly along the threads of vital con- 
 nection between the single form and the complex living group 
 of which it is a member, our pleasure in it is intensified and 
 lifted to a higher plane. And if, again, to this idea of the 
 unity of living nature as it now exists, we can add an intelli- 
 gent conception of the continuity of its present with its past, 
 the idea of a progressive development of life, and learn to rec- 
 ognize its evidences from time to time in the animal forms 
 examined, then the single animal is no longer a temporary 
 trifle, but a long biography, a fragment from the history of 
 life upon the earth. We cannot afford to overlook or ignore, 
 in our teaching, the interrelations, the inter-actions of animals 
 as members of natural living groups, or the value of each liv- 
 ing thing, by nature's standards, as the product of a long strug- 
 gle towards perfection. 
 
 There is also a curious fascination in the unrestricted exer- 
 cise of the exceedingly human propensity to classify, which, 
 when fully developed and disciplined, makes the taxonomic 
 specialist, — a fascination which grows with what it feeds upon, 
 
41 
 
 and which has its cause and justification in some of the mosi 
 characteristic tendencies of the human mind. In the deliberate 
 and attentive comparison of form with form and structure 
 with structure, and in their orderly arrangement in complicated 
 groups and grades of groups, in the perception of general feat- 
 ures running through a mass of things otherwise variously 
 unlike, and in the mental organization of the whole into a 
 compact body of knowledge, the mind is simply performing on 
 things the processes which when applied to ideas we call the 
 recognition and discovery of laws. It may easily be carried too 
 far, but besides affording a certain peculiar mental pleasure, it 
 furnishes a highly valuable discipline. We cannot rationally 
 justify ourselves in tabooing as worthless a practical knowl- 
 edge of the classification of animals. The young laboratory 
 specialist may sometimes tell you that not only are Linnaeus 
 and his followers dead, but their works and methods also have 
 died after them ; but in so saying he is trying to impose on the 
 general and elementary work of the schools the limitations of 
 his own special training and his own personal bias. He is sim- 
 ply teaching you devotion to a fad. 
 
 But much more important, I think we will all agree, than 
 those parts of our science which have an economic and aesthetic 
 bearing chiefly, are those which familiarize the mind with the 
 larger generalizations of the science of life. The longer I 
 teach the more I use the technical processes of zoology as a 
 scaffolding, and its technical facts as a foundation and support 
 for a body of general laws, built up in an orderly manner from 
 almost the first beginnings of my course, and illustrated at 
 every turn, until they are as plain and familiar as the elemen- 
 tary laws of numbers. Let me catalogue a few such generali- 
 zations. 
 
 1. The law of progress by differentiation and specializa- 
 tion of structure, and (2) the corresponding law of the physi- 
 ological division of labor. 3. The law of the progressive 
 development of the single animal from the single cell by uni- 
 form stages to its adult condition. 4. The law of the agree- 
 ment of this individual development with that of the group. 
 5. Next, and really based upon the foregoing, the well-known 
 doctrine of homologies. 6. The idea of a complication and 
 
42 
 
 differentiation of the invisible, or at least hitherto unobserved 
 and possibly molecular, structure of unicellular animals as 
 compared with the visible organic structure of the higher 
 forms, — easily got at by v^ay of the theory of isomorphs in 
 chemistry. 7. Next, the universal correlation among animals, 
 of structure, habits, and surroundings, and (8) the law of 
 accommodation according to which the animal organism can 
 adapt itself within certain limits to changes of condition, or, 
 in some cases, almost without limit if the changes are gradual 
 enough. 9. The law of spontaneous organization in a so-called 
 life group or animal society, by a mutually enforced adjust- 
 ment, among species, of rates of reproduction and destruction. 
 10. Then the fact of animal evolution, and such of its meth- 
 ods as are commonly considered by naturalists as settled beyond 
 dispute. 11. The explanation and illustration of the processes 
 of life in its simplest forms, and the relation of life to organi- 
 zation. 12. The physical and material conditions essential to 
 the manifestation of life, — such as temperature, moisture, and 
 a complicated and unstable composition of its material basis. 
 13. The law of the limitation of growth, dependent upon the 
 mathematical relation of the surface of a body to its mass. 14. 
 The correspondence between colonies of animals of various 
 grades of organization, and of the single animal body with its 
 various organs. 15. The gradation and development of mind in 
 animals, through a difEerentiation and specialization of capaci- 
 ties. 
 
 Such is a partial list, in rather technical language, of gen- 
 eralities which, stated baldly, would of course be uninteresting, 
 and unintelligible indeed, but which if skillfully developed in 
 the order of their difficulty and repeatedly brought to the 
 attention by new and varied illustrations, may be made as easy 
 of acquirement as those of any other subject. So used they 
 give both depth and elevation to the work, and should at least 
 be always in the teacher's mind as centers round which the 
 operations of his class should be made to revolve. 
 
 The peculiar ethical effects of zoological study are to be 
 drawn chiefly from that side of it which deals with the lower 
 animals as alive ; from a knowledge of them as sentient, often 
 intelligent, and sometimes thoughtful beings, which tends to 
 
43 
 
 greatly broaden and enrich the pupil's sympathetic interest; 
 and from a clear conviction, abundantly supported by observa- 
 tion and experiment, that the principle of the uniformity of 
 nature is not limited in its application to senseless force and 
 matter, but that it extends over life and consciousness as well. 
 
 Next, for the sake of clearness in a discussion of the pro- 
 cesses of zoology with a view to an understanding of their ped- 
 agogical bearings, I beg to present a brief general outline of 
 the subdivisions of that science, made for practical rather than 
 strictly critical ends. It will be noticed that some of these 
 subdivisions' are practical only and not real, — the division of 
 anatomy, embryology, and physiology, for example, into " exter- 
 nal" and "internal," madesimplybecause the methods of study 
 and demonstration are difEerent with respect to those phe- 
 nomena which may be seen with the naked eye and without 
 instrumental preparation, and those which require the dissect- 
 ing knife and the microscope or the apparatus of physiological 
 experimentation . 
 
 Under " zoonomics " I have intended to include " relations 
 to nature" more commonly so-called, and I have placed this 
 division under physiology to give prominence to the conception 
 of the living group of associated animals as a biological unit, 
 an organism, having its own organs (the'smaller groups), its 
 own laws of organization, and its special points of contact 
 with the outer world. 
 
 SUBDIVISIONS OF ZOOLOGY. 
 
 1. Animal Morphology (Form). 
 Anatomy. 
 
 Individual. External. Gross. 
 Comparative. Internal. Minute. 
 Embryology (Ontogeny). 
 Individual. External. 
 Comparative. Intertial. 
 . Development (Phylogeuy). 
 Classification (Taxonomy). 
 
44 
 
 2. Animal Physiology (Action). 
 
 Adult. 
 
 Individual. External. 
 
 Comparative. Internal. 
 Embryological. 
 
 Individual. 
 
 Comparative. 
 Social (Zoonomics). 
 
 Present. 
 
 Past. 
 
 3. Zoological Psychology. 
 
 Individual. 
 Comparative. 
 
 4. Zoo-geography (Distribution); 
 
 Present. 
 Past. 
 
 5. Philosophical Zoology. 
 
 I need not say that this technical arrangement of divi- 
 sions hears no relation whatever to their pedagogical arrange- 
 ment. Indeed, a pedagogical arrangement of them is impossi- 
 ble, for I suppose no one would think of teaching all of anat- 
 omy before any physiology or the reverse, or, still less, all of 
 development before any classification, and least of all, perhaps, 
 all of the facts of zoology before any of the causes of its phe- 
 nomena, a knowledge of which alone makes it a science in the 
 full sense of the word. Nevertheless, this list will help us to 
 see just what mental activities are aroused and what methods 
 suggested by each of these departments of zoology. 
 
 Perhaps most of us have many times analyzed the opera- 
 tions of the mind by which such a science is built up, and I will 
 only undertake to distinguish those parts of each division which 
 it is possible to make use of in public school work of a high 
 grade, where zoology runs through the course. 
 
 That the structure of animals may be thus studied, goes 
 without saying, for many schools study it already, — external 
 
45 
 
 structure by simple observation, and internal structure, gross 
 and minute, by the aid of the scalpel and microscope. I would 
 like to say, by the way, that if a few fair microscopes, a sim- 
 ple microtome, and a few mounting materials and reagents 
 are within reach of the school, there is no reason whatever 
 why the making of serial sections — say, of the earthworm — 
 should not be learned by ordinarily competent pupils who have 
 had some preliminary training in the use of the eye and hand, 
 within three or four weeks of the ordinary time allotted to a 
 
 Even comparative anatomy, in its elements, is easily pur- 
 sued in a practical way, by the simple comparison of the struct- 
 ure of two or more animals more or less alike, leading to a dis- 
 tinction of their common characters and a discrimination of 
 those in which they are dissimilar. 
 
 Embryology is usually reckoned quite beyond the reach of 
 the common school, and yet a teacher who knows how could 
 certainly demonstrate, by mounted slides if in no other way, 
 the principal external phenomena in the development of a 
 chick. By what is known as the "window method" of demon- 
 stration the whole thing could be followed from time to time 
 in a single egg up to the fifth day of incubation, when the de- 
 velopment is far advanced. What inexpressible wonder and 
 interest this observation may be made to have, I leave you to 
 imagine. 
 
 That a study of the classification of animals is not only 
 possible, as every one admits, but may be made highly profita- 
 ble to the common school pupil, if properly conducted, I have 
 long been perfectly sure. We must beware, however, of con- 
 fusing two quite distinct and very different things: the mere 
 learning of a correct classification based on all the facts of 
 morphology as interpreted by the highest zoological authorities; 
 and the effort to classify made by the pupil himself, as a prac- 
 tice in generalization. I have yet to learn where in the com- 
 mon school course this training in generalization, this practice 
 in the forming of large and complicated concepts out of con- 
 crete materials, in tracing from point to point the threads of 
 the web of relation by which unlike things are unified and 
 made into larger wholes again capable of being compared 
 
46 
 
 among themselves and so built up into higher and higher con- 
 cepts, — I have yet to learn where this invaluable part of a 
 sound education is now commonly provided for. The doing of 
 this, first on things and then ou ideas, is a most profitable exer- 
 cise, and the habit of doing it spontaneously is a large part of 
 the education of a thinking man. 
 
 But in all this matter our animal is perhaps scarcely 
 thought of as alive; indeed this kind of study of it might have 
 been the same if it had never lived at all. But it is as a living 
 thing that it is interesting to the child; as a sentient being that 
 it is unique; as a multiform embodiment and presentment of 
 life that it appeals to us, — an ever-fresh wonder, a mystery 
 never yet explained. 
 
 All that may be done with structural zoology may be done 
 in some way, sometimes better, sometimes as well, sometimes 
 worse, but still may be done, with the structural side of botany; 
 but there is no teacher's substitute for the living, active animal; 
 neither can anything take the place of the social animal group. 
 The plants of a wood or field or stream are simply a crowd; 
 but the animals of a circumscribed area are a society, built up 
 class upon class, on the vegetable world as a foundation, dis-- 
 tinguished by competitions and knit together by the bonds of 
 mutual aid and comfort. Whatever else of zoology we may 
 slight or omit, this par*-, which shows us animals as simply a 
 different kind of men and their organized assemblages as fixed 
 societies, which sets forth and illustrates the natural laws of 
 life and social organization under which we also live and work, 
 must have a place in every well-considered course. As a mere 
 discipline, however, it seems to me on the whole quite inferior 
 to animal morphology. It proceeds by the same methods of 
 observation and comparison, but by processes less refined, — 
 since experimental physiology is practically forbidden for 
 humanitarian reasons, — and yields a less manageable product. 
 It is also far more difficult for both teacher and pupil, but, we 
 must always add, vastly more interesting also. 
 
 This dynamic side of zoology — its physiology, commonly 
 so called, and its psychology — is really as extensive a subject 
 as its morphological side, and is capable of equal subdivision. 
 The two branches, starting from the same level, run parallel 
 
47 
 
 indeed, one culminating in classification and the other in 
 zoonomics; one leading to the structural group and the other 
 to the social group, — the lebensgemeinschaft, or life group, of 
 some of the Germans. And still the two stand in the closest 
 practical relation at every point, structure always explaining 
 function and function explaining structure. I need not say 
 that they are really inseparable in pedagogical practice. And 
 finally I would point out that they both merge, as do all other 
 departments of my subject, in what, on my outline I have 
 called philosophical zoology, — in the doctrine of causes, with- 
 out which, as Ray Lankester well says, no body of facts really 
 deserves to be called a science. How and why came the wing 
 of a butterfly to be covered with scales, the caudal fin of a 
 crayfish to be lobed and jointed, the gastrula of an earthworm 
 to be so similar to that of a lancelet, the eye of a nautilus to 
 be so like and yet so unlike to that of a man? How does it 
 happen that in all Africa there is not a crayfish; that the use- 
 less mandible of a butterfly is as constantly present as the 
 indispensable one of a beetle; that through all the ups and 
 downs, the variations to and fro, of the essential conditions of 
 life in any spot, the balance of life remains practically con- 
 stant for centuries at a stretch? These little words how and 
 why shed the same penetrating light of thought on this subject 
 as on every other, and may be made to call forth any grade of 
 mental effort, from that of the most obvious inference to the 
 long train of reasoning, checked and tested at every turn by 
 critical comparison with every pertinent fact. But we mast 
 not forget, or permit our pupils to forget, that the more general 
 parts of this theory of zoology must be taught them ex cathedra 
 merely. The real proof of almost any general proposition in 
 zoology is the mass of particulars from which, as a generaliza- 
 tion, it has been drawn; and the weight of this evidence none 
 but the learned expert can truly judge. It is a weakness of the 
 so-called sciences of observation, from the educational point of 
 view, that their most general conclusions must be taken by the 
 pupil on trust, and that while the process by which these were 
 reached may be illustrated, the evidence on which they rest 
 cannot be commonly reviewed. All the more necessary is it 
 that many small, separate problems in inductive zoology should 
 
48 
 
 be worked out thoroughly, and that the methods and results of 
 the pupil's reasoning should be critically tested by comparison 
 with the facts. The difficulties here are, indeed, precisely those 
 of the study of classification, and are to be met by the same 
 expedient of a separation between practice and instruction. 
 The main features of a zoological theory may be taught author- 
 itatively, and practical exercises in the method of induction 
 should be devised for their own sake alone. 
 
 In all the foregoing I have made no attempt to arrange 
 the matter of a common school course, and I shall be satisfied 
 if 1 have led you over such a general review of the contents of 
 the zoology of the present day as will help to a broad survey 
 of the field, and an ii;telligent, impartial, and judicious selec- 
 tion from the whole mass of matter offered to the teacher's 
 hand by this rich and many-sided science. 
 
THE EELATION OP THE NATURAL SCIENCES TO 
 
 THE OTHER STUDIES OP THE 
 
 COMMON SCHOOL. 
 
 F. M. MCMUERY. PH. D., NORMAL, ILL. 
 
 The relation of the natural sciences to the other studies 
 of the common school leads to the consideration of a very 
 important principle of pedagogy. That principle is applied to 
 some extent by most teachers in each recitation and in each 
 study, but its application farther than that is usually almost 
 totally disregarded. 
 
 For instance, under ordinary circumstances, any principal 
 would criticise that teacher sharply who showed, in her reci- 
 tations, a strong tendency to teach unrelated facts, to marshal 
 forth one point after another without reference to their con- 
 nections. Such a teacher would rightly be charged with a want 
 of logic, and would deserve to be reminded that the parts of 
 any one recitation should be so related that they seem like 
 parts of a whole, that they form or at least approach a unit. 
 
 The same thought applies likewise to each study; its parts 
 are recognized as parts of a rather complete unit and, when 
 taught to a child, it is expected that this relationship will be 
 made apparent. Thus the teacher of arithmetic tries to show 
 that the process of long division is not fundamentally differ- 
 ent from that of short division; that percentage is only work 
 in fractions, etc. The teacher of geography does what she 
 can to impart her knowledge systematically; she lets one point 
 lead to another; she shows that the physical conditions of a 
 country determine largely the location of cities, the employ- 
 ment of the people, and the products. She compares the phys- 
 ical features, the occupations and the products of one country 
 with those of another, in order to bring out the salient charac- 
 teristics more clearly; and she thus binds the facts together till 
 she finally secures something like a unity of geographical 
 knowledge. In other studies the same effort is made; especially 
 
50 
 
 in history is the relation of various thoughts and actions of 
 primary importance, because it, together with literature, is the 
 chief character-building study. 
 
 Now, what principle of education is that which demands 
 that the knowledge imparted in each recitation, and in each 
 study as a whole, be related knowledge? Or can it be only our 
 aesthetic taste that leads us to admire unity and therefore makes 
 this demand. There is a better answer. 
 
 Undoubtedly one commonly accepted reason is the view that 
 each study is composed of a classified lot of knowledge. One 
 fact bears a logical or causal relation to another, or there is a 
 close dependency of one thought upon others, or similarity be- 
 tween them; and this relationship of parts, dependency or 
 similarity, leads to classified knowledge, making of the study a 
 connected and inseparable whole. Therefore because the study 
 is composed of classified knowledge it should be taught as a 
 related whole; and the recitations, which are separate steps 
 towards the mastery of the whole, should approach, as nearly 
 as possible, small units which, taken together, make it up. 
 There is a strong tendency among all teachers, and especially 
 among specialists, towards the acceptance of this view. And 
 still, few will insist that the branches of knowledge taught in 
 our grammar and primary schools shall be regarded in this 
 light; for several of them, as history, reading, and geography, 
 have not their knowledge classified, i. e., they are not science 
 at all; and those in which the knowledge is classified, as the 
 natural sciences, are not expected to be taught as sciences in 
 these schools. 
 
 For instance, I think you have agreed that classification is 
 not to be considered as an important purpose in zoology or 
 botany. Still, there is a constant effort made to proceed logic- 
 ally, i. «., according to classification, in these studies, and it is 
 proving the curse of many schools. Logical thinking is very 
 desirable in every study, but that kind of logic which leads to 
 the sacrifice of the child for the sake of the study, has no 
 place in the public school. 
 
 As far as our common schools are concerned, then, it is not 
 because each study is really an inseparable or organic whole, a 
 science, that we desire to bring its parts into a close relation- 
 
51 
 
 ship. Undoubtedly many who are led to make such an effort, do 
 so from a quite different and more intelligent reason, namely, be- 
 cause associated or related knowledge is the kind which it is de- 
 sirable that the child should acquire; the various parts considered 
 in each recitation should be connected because of the superior 
 value of connected knowledge; and the parts of each study 
 should be as closely related as possible for exactly the same 
 reason. The very important principle, which was above re- 
 ferred to and which is here involved, is that the value of knowl- 
 edge depends not only upon the distinctness and accuracy of 
 ideas, hut also upon the closeness and extent of the relations into 
 which they enter. This is a fundamental principle of education, 
 and especially important in considering the relation of the 
 natural sciences to the other studies of the common school. 
 It was Herbart who said, "Only those thoughts come easily and 
 frequently to mind which have at some time made a strong 
 impression, and which possess numerous connections with other 
 thoughts." And psychology teaches that those ideas which 
 take an isolated station in the mind are usually weak in the 
 impression they make and easily forgotten. A fact, however 
 important in itself, if learned without reference to other facts, 
 is quite likely to fade quickly from the memory. It is for this 
 reason that the witticisms, sayings, and scattered pieces of 
 information which we pick up here and there are so soon for- 
 gotten. There is no way of bringing about their frequent 
 reproduction when they are so disconnected, for the reproduc- 
 tion of ideas is governed largely by the law of association. One 
 idea reminds us of another closely related to it; this of another, 
 etc., till a long series is reproduced. They are bound together 
 like the links of a chain, and one idea draws another along with 
 it, just as one link of a chain drags another after it. A mental 
 image that is not a member of such a series cannot hope to 
 come often to consciousness; it must, as a rule, sink into 
 oblivion, because the usual means of calling it forth are 
 wanting. 
 
 The advantages of closely associated knowledge are thus 
 
 quite apparent ; for it is only by associating thoughts closely 
 
 that one comes to possess them securely and have command over 
 
 them. His reproduction of ideas is then rapid enough to enable 
 
 4 
 
52 
 
 him to comprehend a situation quickly and form judgment with 
 some safety ; his knowledge is all present and ready for use ; 
 while, on the other hand, one whose related thoughts have never 
 been firmly welded together, reproduces slowly, and in conse- 
 quence is wavering and undecided ; his knowledge is not at his 
 command and he is therefore weak. 
 
 It is because children's related mental pictures are not 
 tightly bound together that they so often jump about helter- 
 skelter and interrupt our recitations by introducing topics 
 wholly irrelevant to the subject matter in hand. One of the 
 foremost duties of their teachers is to associate their knowl- 
 edge, and thus give them the habit of thinking connectedly, as 
 well as to clarify the old and impart to them new information. 
 Their minds seem to be filled with masses of knowledge that 
 need assortment and systematic arrangement, and this should 
 be arranged in such a way that chains of related ideas are 
 formed ; and these chains, or series, should be run over so often 
 that the reproduction of a portion of any series involuntarily 
 recalls the rest. For instance, the teacher of history should 
 make the causal relations of events so conspicuous in her teach- 
 ing that if the arbitrary government of George III. be men- 
 tioned, a long series of results will almost unconsciously come 
 to the mind of her pupil ; as the battle of Lexington, Bun- 
 ker Hill, declaration of independence, etc. 
 
 It is a leading purpose of instruction to form in the minds 
 of children such closely related series of pictures or thoughts ; 
 the relation need not be necessarily causal, it may be a relation 
 of similarity or of time or space ; it may be a logical one, al- 
 though, as said above, there is danger in too much logic ; but 
 above all things it should not bean artificial or forced relation. 
 Such series are so necessary, because we are governed in our 
 actions by the ideas which we possess ; not by the isolated xdiQAS 
 which stand aloof from the others, for isolated ideas exert lit- 
 tle influence, they lack strength ; but by our leading chains of 
 related ideas. In deciding upon moral actions a series of moral 
 maxims, supported, perhaps, by many individual cases illustrat- 
 ing them come to our minds ; and if the maxims composing 
 the series are well enough understood and numerous enou<^h, 
 there is a possibility of their influencing the will sufficiently to 
 
53 
 
 resist temptation. In business and social relations likewise, 
 series of ideas are constantly coming to our minds and decid- 
 ing our acftions. To be moral, to be judicious, to be successful 
 in any line, it is necessary for one to be able to assemble quickly 
 and easily most or all of the knowledge related to the subject 
 in hand ; one who cannot do that is quite likely to act hesitat- 
 ingly ; and then repent as other considerations come tardily to 
 mind. When knowledge is closely associated it is more thor- 
 ough, for one point casts light upon another ; and because it is 
 more thorough it is more interesting. When we remember that 
 those facts which are welded together in instruction are better 
 understood, better remembered, more interesting and more ef- 
 fective in their influence upon our actions, we can see ample 
 reasons for imparting knowledge in the related form, in long 
 series or chains of ideas. 
 
 Without doubt, the specialist in geography, or history, or 
 science, is somewhat influenced by this consideration when he 
 insists upon the logical development of his subject; but here a 
 great danger threatens the child. For, to take an extreme case, 
 suppose a child has a specialist for his teacher in each branch, 
 as is actually the case, I understand, in the Felix A.dler school 
 of New York; each teacher strives to relate the portions of 
 knowledge belonging to his branch as closely as possible; but 
 the very great danger is that the pupil will have a half dozen 
 lots of ideas which will bear very little relation to one another; 
 while the parts of each study are well associated, the various 
 studies themselves will stand in no relation to one another. 
 
 While the principle is obeyed, that the knowledge imparted 
 to the child should be closely associated, it is at the same time 
 disobeyed in a higher form. For this principle applies as much 
 to the relation of the different studies to one another as to por- 
 tions of the same study; and, if the different parts of one 
 branch are brought into close relationship because of the su- 
 perior value of related knowledge, then the same reason exists 
 in a higher degree for the close relationship of all the branches 
 with one another. 
 
 The unity of all the knowledge which enters the child's 
 mind is the goal towards which we should strive in the applica- 
 tion of the above principle; that is the highest unity, and there- 
 
54 
 
 fore the most important. It should be our care, in each day's 
 work, to bring the different kinds of knowledge which our pu- 
 pil acquires, into a close connection, so that they enter his mind 
 as nearly as possible as a unit. At present this is not the case 
 at all in most schools. During the different hours of the day 
 the most heterogeneous thoughts are crowded into the child's 
 mind in rapid succession. He turns from arithmetic to geog- 
 raphy and then reads some prose or poetry; he is next told a 
 mythological story and then receives an information lesson 
 about animals or plants; after this he repeats some newly 
 learned "sentiments," and learns lastly, perhaps, some historic- 
 al facts. This is about the program followed each day. What 
 a confusion, what a jumble of ideas in his mind, no matter 
 how carefully the portions of each study are associated. The 
 soul itself is a unit, it is said, and tends to hold together and 
 associate its knowledge; but it is helpless before the masses of 
 ideas crowded in upon it in this manner, and we err when we 
 rely upon it for so much help. It is our duty, as teachers, to 
 depend somewhat upon ourselves as well as upon the natural 
 unifying power of the soul; to fix our attention upon the 
 minds of our scholars and see that all the information that we 
 impart to them is as securely bound together as possible. Our 
 efforts will never be crowned with entire success, but we can 
 remedy greatly a serious existing evil. The fact that we do 
 not feel the need of such an effort is no proof that it would 
 not benefit the child. Our broader experience enables us to see 
 some unity in the facts we teach, but with the child this is sel- 
 dom true, as instruction is commonly given. Most of us can 
 probably remember how astonished and pleased we have been, 
 when, as children, we discovered that a point learned in one 
 branch bore a close resemblance to the lesson in another branch; 
 at least that was my own experience; for, each time I turned 
 from one study to another, I felt that I was going to a wholly 
 different and hence unrelated subject. 
 
 We need to keep in mind, therefore, the principle pertain- 
 ing to related knowledge, frequently called the principle of con- 
 centration, in imparting instruction in our public schools. This 
 does not imply less effort in the future in establishing a close 
 connection between the parts of each study; it means simply 
 
55 
 
 that we should lay much more stress than heretofore, upon the 
 relation of the studies to one another. 
 
 A good method of teaching will bring about such a rela- 
 tion to some extent, but the chief means of accomplishing this 
 purpose is to be found in the choice of material in the different 
 studies and in its relative arrangement; in other words, the 
 principle of concentration demands a peculiar arrangement of 
 our course of study. Some branches must take the lead and 
 determine partially the choice of material in the others; science 
 must either be the leading study, or assume somewhat depend- 
 ent relations. 
 
 It seems a very serious matter to allow our course of study 
 to be so much affected by the consideration of so compara- 
 tively strange a principle of pedagogy as that of concentra- 
 tion; but it is by no means a new principle; for hundreds of 
 years it has had a marked influence upon the school curriculum. 
 Centuries ago, when the number of studies taught in the schools 
 was much less than at present, the humanists, or those who 
 taught the classics, objected seriously to teaching unrelated 
 ideas; they advocated strongly the exclusive study of the 
 classics on the ground that the knowledge thus attained was 
 closely associated and therefore formed a unit in the child's 
 mind. It was with this thought that Comenius recommended 
 that during any one period, as a week or a month and perhaps a 
 term, only a single study should be carried on; for in that way 
 a close connection of the thoughts imparted was assured. It 
 was probably owing to a like reason that others have advocated 
 exactly the opposite course; i. e., that during any recitation all, 
 or at least many, things should be taught, for one thought 
 easily leads to another in a different branch of knowledge, this 
 to another, etc., and thus the knowledge acquired is closely as- 
 sociated in the child's mind. These and similar plans, after 
 having had their numerous enthusiastic supporters, have fallen 
 into ill-repute and been forgotten. To us their defects are quite 
 apparent, because they necessitate either narrow or superficial 
 study, but they should not blind us to the importance of the 
 principle involved. 
 
 Two and a half centuries ago, leading educators felt 
 that it was dangerous to teach many subjects, because the ideas 
 
56 
 
 could easily remain disunited and thus unity of consciousness 
 might be destroyed. Since that time most of our common 
 school studies have found their way into our curriculum, and 
 at the present time, another, called Science, is struggling for 
 admission. There is little doubt but that it will soon be gen- 
 erally admitted, and will take rank among the especially im- 
 portant studies. How shall the subject matter in science be 
 chosen? Shall we sit down and make out a course in it without 
 reference to the other school work? If we firmly believe that 
 the ideas which enter the child's mind should be not only clear 
 and distinct but also closely related, we cannot do that. If un- 
 related ideas were a danger which was carefully to be avoided 
 when there were so few studies, the danger is vastly greater 
 to-day, when our course contains so many more studies; and 
 especial care should be taken to guard against it. It is our duty 
 to seek out the relationship among the different studies and 
 make it plain to the child. As said before, however, this rela- 
 tionship must be a natural one; it was because it was made so 
 artificial that the thought of concentration became very uur 
 popular in Germany between the years 1850 and '60, and in 
 consequence most teachers gave up the attempt to relate 
 studies. It is easy, though, to see a close connection between 
 literature, history, and geography, and many teachers now-a- 
 days are making history and geography mutually dependent, 
 and are allowing their history to determine the choice of the 
 poems, orations, etc., which are to be studied in the literature 
 recitations. There is danger, to some extent, of destroying 
 the unity of some of the studies by teaching them in this way; 
 for example, literature, when thus taught, loses its own inde- 
 pendence and its different parts will not always stand in much 
 relation to one another; but, in this case, the increased interest 
 in both literature and history and the greater thoroughness 
 obtained, as well as the greatest unity of thought, compensate 
 for the slight loss. 
 
 By such an arrangement of studies the series of related 
 ideas formed are not confined within any one study; while 
 one thought in history leads to another in history, as already 
 referred to, Series are formed which lead from study to study. 
 For example, the expression. Arcadian farmers, leads our 
 
57 
 
 thoughts to the history of the Arcadians — then to the poem 
 " Evangeline," and finally, perhaps, to the geography of Nova 
 Scotia and the surrounding country. The various studies are 
 thus bound together and reproduced in connection v?ith one 
 another. It is possible to build up such series of ideas where 
 the relation of the different branches is close and natural, so 
 that the choice of material in some is easily determined by the 
 subjects being taught in others. 
 
 The question for us now to consider is, whether or not 
 science bears such a relation to the other studies that its de- 
 pendence upon them, or their dependence upon it, would be 
 natural. Its close connection with language work is plain ; 
 the subjects and the contents of many of the compositions 
 maybe chosen directly from the science. Its relation to arith- 
 metic is probably as near as that of any other study ; in the 
 lowest grades the notions, two, three, four, etc., as well as pairs 
 of twos, threes, fours, etc., can be acquired from science with- 
 out much special effort, and it is thus a great help to the num- 
 ber work. In the higher grades the science of numbers seems 
 to be largely independent of matter, and it is only now and 
 then that examples may be chosen from science with profit. 
 That we should make our examples, however, more profitable, 
 i. e., more in accordance with our daily experiences, seems gen- 
 erally agreed upon by teachers, and, in that case, science can 
 be relied upon to furnish considerable more suitable material 
 than it does at present. 
 
 But what is the relation of science to history, literature, 
 and geography ? Must it stand aloof from these important 
 studies, and thus necessitate the existence of a lot of notions 
 in the child's mind, mostly unrelated to the ideas obtained 
 from these other studies ? or can it be brought into a com- 
 plete or even partial relation with them ? The subject has 
 been studied so little, and so few attempts have been made in 
 this country to associate science with the other branches, that 
 we hardly know what is possible with us; but that a healthy 
 relation between them can be established to a considerable ex- 
 tent I feel sure. Karl Ritter's fame as an educator is world- 
 wide, and one of his three principles in regard to geography, 
 which has made him famous, was his assertion of the close rela- 
 
58 
 
 tionship of history and geography to science. As I understand 
 it, it was his opinion that a knowledge of the plants, animals, 
 etc., of a country is necessary for a fair understanding of the 
 history and geography of that country. If that is true, the re- 
 lationship is quite close, and its effect upon the branch called 
 science might be to cause the plants, animals, etc., which will 
 be studied to be determined by the country which is under con- 
 sideration in the geography recitations. For example, when 
 the Rhine is the subject, the grape, its growth and culture, 
 and the making of wine would be excellent subjects for 
 instruction in the science recitations. They would not ne- 
 cessarily have to be treated at just the same time ; that might 
 not be convenient ; but when they did come up it would be 
 well to teach them in such a connection. It would be well to 
 do so, because the grape is an essential element in the mental 
 picture of the Rhine region, just as corn is essential for the un- 
 derstanding of the geography of Illinois. The knowledge 
 would thus be more thorough in each case and, what is exceed- 
 ingly important, more interesting; more interesting because, for 
 some reason, related knowledge is necessarily more impressive 
 than unrelated knowledge. It would not be necessary that 
 every subject in science be thus directly suggested by some 
 other study ; a certain animal or plant might be suggested, 
 and then others closely related to it, either on account of 
 their similarity or dependence, could be studied. That is the 
 plan which the Herbartian school of pedagogy follows in its 
 selection of science material ; some other study necessitates, to 
 some extent, the study of a certain animal, and then it, to- 
 gether with the group to which it is for some reason nearly 
 related, receives the attention of the class for some time. By 
 this means a large n umber of the ideas taught are carefully 
 associated, and then the habit of associating knowledge, a habit 
 which must be slowly learned, is acquired. 
 
 Each country usually bas some characteristic animals or 
 plants, and even if we have not the same at all in our own re- 
 gion, we usually have some nearly related forms which can 
 stand as representatives of the others and be studied in that 
 light. But numerous and apt illustrations of the close connec- 
 tion between geography and science can be the result only of 
 
59 
 
 many experiments in this line. My own efforts towards con- 
 centration have been confined almost entirely to the first and 
 second grades, where geography is not taught, and they have 
 aimed at the association of literature and science. In our first 
 grade we have taught fairy tales, and in the second Robinson 
 Crusoe, for nearly one year and a half, ranking both as regu- 
 lar studies which were to be taught each day. We have allowed 
 them to determine the choice of a considerable portion of our 
 material for observation lessons, perhaps nearly half of it. The 
 mere mention of a certain plant in a fairy tale has not, of 
 course, led to its study; but when the part it played in the 
 story was important enough to suggest it naturally as an ofe- 
 ject of study it was frequently chosen. For instance, the tale 
 " The Pea Blossom " tells first of five green peas in their pod. 
 They gradually change color till they are yellow, when a little 
 boy bursts open the pod and shoots them forth from his pea 
 shooter. One falls into a crack by the window of a poor, sick 
 girl, and one day she discovers a tiny pea vine there. She 
 watches its slow growth, and her enjoyment of the plant and 
 flower brings about her entire recovery. The story directed 
 the attention of the children to the pea; they were interested in 
 the story and to some in extent in the vine, so that the occasion 
 seemed fitting for taking the latter up: the flower, the peas in 
 the pod, their germination and their later growth. Of course 
 the tale was often referred to during these observations. When 
 one remembers how real a fairy story is to a child, he can 
 easily see that observation may be greatly enlivened by such an 
 association. 
 
 The story of " The King-Bird," which is the description 
 of a battle between the four-footed animals on one side and 
 the winged ones on the other, led to a careful study of the 
 king-bird and the hornet with its nest, as well as to some study 
 of the bear, fox, wolf, eagle, and several other animals that 
 were kept in a park near by. We might have taught them 
 without the assistance of any story, but it seemed to us that 
 the story was a great help to the science; and besides that, it is 
 certain that the enjoyment of the fairy tale was greatly in- 
 creased by means of the observations made. 
 
60 
 
 The pine tree, its cones and needles, as well as the leaves 
 of other trees, were studied in connection with the tale called 
 "The Discontented Pine Tree," the tree that was dissatisfied with 
 its leaves, and in consequence received a prettier kind several 
 times. This association of literature and science was certainly 
 natural, and was an advantage to each, while it led to unity of 
 knowledge by developing a series of related ideas. In the 
 second year's work the relation of these two branches seems to 
 me perhaps closer. For suppose a child has reached the point 
 in the story of Robinson Crusoe where he is landed upon the 
 island; if he is to picture vividly, and with proper understand- 
 ing and feeling, Robinson's thoughts and actions, he must 
 become acquainted with his occupations. He must form a 
 nearer acquaintance with the animals and plants that proved 
 so useful to him, their uses, habits, structure, etc. Strong 
 interest in the story creates the need and desire of knowing 
 more about Indian corn (especially on the part of city children). 
 His pets are the parrot and the goat; they furnish him company 
 and food. They will probably be subjects for study sometime 
 anyway, and it is an advantage to introduce them now while 
 they are objects of interest. He fixes up a sun-dial to tell the 
 time of day; he finds wheat growing before his door and secures 
 a few handfuls from his first harvest; he sows it for several 
 seasons and finally has plenty from which to make flour and 
 bread. But these two processes prove very difficult for him. 
 The island has a tropical climate, a rainy and dry season, and 
 it produces oranges and lemons, cocoa nuts, melons, rice, and 
 grapes, which are made into raisins. Salt is found upon its 
 springs in abundance. Several points which would not come 
 under science proper might well belong to a set of observation 
 lessons for children of this age. For instance, Robinson makes 
 milk into butter and cheese, he invents a calendar, he makes 
 baskets, and he devotes much time to the subject of pottery in 
 the hope of getting vessels to cook in. These subjects, to- 
 gether with those which are nearly related to them, furnish a 
 good portion of the year's work in observation lessons. The 
 related subjects may be of paramount importance. Our class, 
 after becoming acquainted with the plants which grew upon 
 the island, wanted to know how so many ever got there, and 
 
61 
 
 thus the important topic, " the dispersion of seeds, " was 
 talked about. 
 
 Such a close association of science with literature removes 
 one of the greatest difficulties of which my teachers have com- 
 plained; namely, the absence of a reason for taking up one 
 subject in preference to another. When there is a reason for 
 the choice, the interest of both teacher and pupil is necessarily 
 livelier, the unity of knowledge greater. 
 
 I am aware that the danger of artificial associations be- 
 tween science and the other branches is very great ; no doubt 
 some of those of which I have spoken will be complained of ; I 
 think, too, that if the principle of concentration were accepted 
 it would postpone the choice of a course in science work very 
 much, because we would first have to decide whether science 
 should be made somewhat dependent upon literature, or vice 
 ve>-sa, and if the former, then a course of literature and his- 
 tory from the first grade to the eighth would need to be de- 
 cided upon before we could know what our science lessons 
 would be. This is increasing our already exceedingly difficult 
 task ; but a very important principle is here at stake. I hope 
 it will occupy the attention of teachers till some arrangement 
 is made to secure a greater unity of knowledge. 
 
 It has not been my intention, in speaking of fairy tales 
 and the story of Robinson Crusoe, to advocate them in this pa- 
 per as school studies ; while I do advocate them, my only pur- 
 pose here was to give some examples of the relationship exist- 
 ing between literature and science. 
 
 Before deciding upon the merits of the plan for concen- 
 tration which I have proposed, it is necessary to inquire to 
 what extent this plan accomplishes the special purpose of 
 science-teaching. For, aside from the great aim of all educa- 
 tion, character-building, each study is supposed to have its own 
 peculiar purposes, and any arrangement which tends to defeat 
 these latter may rightly be complained of. 
 
 As I take it, the highest immediate purpose of all our in- 
 struction in grammar and primary schools is a many-sided in- 
 terest, and as science represents one of the important spheres 
 of knowledge, its highest immediate purpose is the awakening 
 of a lively and permanent interest in plants, animals, and nat- 
 
62 
 
 ural phenomena, for such an interest is the condition under 
 which the commonly accepted purposes of science-teaching may 
 be effected. These purposes are a habit of observation and the 
 acquisition of a large amount of useful information, and 
 neither of them can be attained sufficiently without a strong 
 and permanent interest in nature. This is so important, because 
 it leads, first of all, to continual mental activity, the chief ob- 
 ject of education as far as the intellect is concerned. One 
 who takes delight in nature is continually finding material for 
 thought, for we come in contact with it continually. A bot- 
 anist, when passing through a wood, is likely to do much more 
 thinking than one who possesses no special liking for flowers, 
 and one who has developed a love for all nature likewise does 
 vastly more thinking, other things being equal, than one who 
 cares little for it. 
 
 The connection between a lively and permanent interest and 
 the habit of observation is close. The latter is not a training 
 of the eye simply in the power to look closely and see all ; it is 
 not a, faculty, which is to be developed in the way we usually 
 think the memory, or a muscle, can be developed, i. e. by exer- 
 cise. A habit is a kind of activity which has become invol- 
 untary ; and when we agree that science should impart a habit 
 of observation to children, we mean that we wish them to ob- 
 serve involuntarily or without conscious effort the objects and 
 phenomena which nature exhibits to them. They will never 
 do this to any great degree unless they feel deeply interested in 
 nature. To be sure, practice of the eye is necessary before 
 one can see accurately, but the most important element in this 
 habit is the constant and unconscious willingness to look. It 
 is the absence of such a disposition on the part of most people 
 which prevents them from being good observers. The stock 
 raiser is unconsciously observant of horses and cattle, the shoe- 
 maker of the style of one's shoes, the tailor of one's clothes, 
 and the zoologist of the habits of animals. Our minds dwell 
 upon, and are watchful of those things in which they are in- 
 terested. 
 
 Also, the quantity of useful information that one obtains 
 is largely proportionate to the interest; for a lively and perma- 
 nent interest in nature causes constant atteutiveness to one's 
 
63 
 
 surroundings, and thus produces a continual increase in the 
 store of information at hand. 
 
 A person's mental activity therefore, his habits of observa- 
 tion, and his stock of useful knowledge are each directly de- 
 pendent upon a lively and permanent interest in nature. The 
 plan of study which tends to augment this interest is, for that 
 reason, likely to be approved of by science teachers. As is 
 already clear, one important argument which I have tried to 
 advance in favor of concentration is that it tends to increase 
 the degree of interest in each study concerned. If that is true, 
 the commonly accepted purpose of science-teaching is not de- 
 feated by such a plan as that proposed; it is rather made more 
 attainable by it. 
 
 Now, if the knowledge that is acquired through science 
 study is not so disconnected in consequeace of this plan that 
 comparisons and generalizations cannot well take place, the 
 objections to it may seem largely removed. It is by a study of 
 method that the teacher is to surmount this difficulty, for when 
 an object is brought into consideration which is closely related 
 to one already handled, a comparison of the two can well take 
 place. It affords a desirable review; and when several similar 
 objects or phenomena have been treated, even though at rather 
 widely separated intervals, their comparison, the discovery of 
 their common characteristics, and the consequent generaliza- 
 tions, can follow as well as ever. Hence it seems to me that 
 while the dangers and difficulties to be met with in carrying 
 out this idea of concentration are great, its real disadvantages 
 are slight; and because an important law of pedagogy demands 
 the establishment of a close relationship among the various 
 studies, concentration of some kind should be attempted. 
 
A COURSE OP SCIENCE STUDY FOR THE FIRST 
 
 FOUR YEARS: ITS AIM, MATERIAL, 
 
 AND METHOD. 
 
 BY FERNANDO SANFOBD, JACOB BEIDLEE PEOFESSOK OF PHYSICAL 
 ' SCIENCE, LAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, ILLINOIS. 
 
 At the meeting of the Science Teachers' Section of this 
 Association last year, a committee was appointed to consider the 
 preparation of a course of science study for the common schools 
 of the state, and to report progress at the present meeting. It 
 was the unanimous opinion of the members of the committee 
 that the time has not yet arrived for laying out a definite 
 course of study in these branches. Since it is a fundamental 
 dictum of modern science that valid deductions must be based 
 upon general principles which have been derived from experi- 
 mental data, and in the matter of elementary science teaching, 
 the experimental data are too few to admit of any broad gen- 
 eralizations, the applications of these general principles to edu- 
 cational work is necessarily limited. While it is true that ele- 
 mentary science teaching has been, and now is, a legislative 
 requirement, it is also true that this requirement has always 
 been based upon the supposed practical importance of a knowl- 
 edge of certain facts which happen to be included in the 
 material of some of the sciences, and not upon a recognition of 
 the value of scientific training. Indeed, the nature of this re- 
 quirement has always been such as to preclude the use of the 
 matter taught as a means of training in scientific method. 
 
 I shall not, then, attempt to ofEer a course of study in 
 science adapted to the first four years of school life everywhere, 
 but shall endeavor, rather, to present for your consideration 
 some of the reasons why such a course of study is required, and 
 to suggest, as far as my ability and experience will permit, 
 some of the material adapted to the purpose of such instruction, 
 and some of the methods which I regard as essential to suc- 
 cessful work in this line. 
 
 It is well, also, to bear in mind that what I shall under- 
 take to say on this subject is intended, as the caption indicates. 
 
65 
 
 to apply only to children in the first four years of their school 
 life, — say from six to ten years of age, — for while the prin- 
 ciples of scientific study are the same everywhere, the particular 
 kind of work which a child can do in any subject depends upon 
 his previous training and upon the maturity of his mind. 
 "There is" says R. H. Quick, "between the child of nine and 
 the youth of fourteen or fifteen a greater difference than be- 
 tween the youth and the man of twenty ; and this demands a 
 corresponding difference in their studies." The same writer, in 
 speaking of the English school system of the present, says, "As 
 it seems to the present writer, the worst part of our education- 
 al course — the part that is wrong in theory and pernicious in 
 practice — is our instruction of children, say between the ages 
 of seven and twelve." 
 
 If it is true that the mind of the young child is so differ- 
 ent in its capacity for mental work from that of the youth of 
 fourteen or fifteen, it is important that this difference should 
 be clearly understood before attempting to prepare a course of 
 study adapted especially to young children. Fortunately for 
 our undertaking, there is practical agreement among the writ- 
 ers on psychology on this score. No matter what views are 
 held concerning the nature of the mind, it is universally 
 admitted that knowledge can be acquired, broadly speaking, 
 only in two general ways; viz., through the senses or through 
 the imagination. Even our most transcendental psychologists 
 admit that our primary ideas — if not intuitive, and hence 
 incapable of voluntary acquisition — are based upon sense per- 
 ception. All are likewise agreed that the imagination can 
 work originally only upon these sense perceptions, and later only 
 upon these and the general notions which have been derived by 
 its own activity from sense perceptions. It follows that sense 
 perception must be the first method of the acquisition of 
 knowledge, and that the power of acquiring knowledge by 
 means of the imagination is limited by the stock of sense per- 
 ceptions which have left their trace in the memory. This 
 being true, the child of six years is still dependent almost 
 entirely upon his senses for the acquisition of knowledge. It 
 follows that the first training of the school should be directed 
 very largely to the cultivation of those powers through which 
 
the child gains the most direct knowledge of things external to 
 him. 
 
 This has been recognized and acted upon in some way by 
 every educational reformer from Comenius to Spencer, and our 
 idealistic friends who find in literature and logic the sum total 
 of material for mental training should not forget that John 
 Milton, the greatest literary man of all, has said, * " Because 
 one's understanding cannot, in this body, found itself but on 
 sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to the knowledge of God 
 and things invisible as by orderly conning over the visible and 
 inferior creature, the same method is necessarily to be followed 
 in all discreet teaching." 
 
 We have been accustomed to distinguish, at least in 
 thought, between the value of a study as a means of mental 
 growth, and its value as a means of acquiring useful knowl- 
 edge. The studies of the first years of school life have usually 
 been directed especially to the latter aim, often to the serious 
 neglect of those mental activities which we call the faculties. 
 The little child whose mind is more than at any other time of 
 life open to external impressions through the senses, because he 
 is yet dependent upon these sense impressions for all his mental 
 activity, is shut away from all familiar surroundings in respect 
 to which his mind was so active, and instead of the orderly 
 conning over of visible and sensible things by the method 
 which Milton says " is necessarily to be followed in all discreet 
 teaching," he is set to learning symbols which have, at the 
 best, only a fortuitous relation to the things or ideas for 
 which they stand. When one thinks how wide a departure our 
 primary instruction is from the way in which the faculties are 
 naturally called into play, it seems to me he cannot but agree 
 with Mr. Quick's estimate of the English schools, that " the 
 worst part of our educational course is our instruction of chil- 
 dren " during the first four or five years of their school life, 
 and with his further expression of his " strong conviction that 
 boys' minds are frequently dwarfed and their interest in intel- 
 lectual pursuits blighted by the practice of employing the first 
 years of their school life in learning by heart things which it 
 is quite impossible for them to understand or care for." 
 * See Quick's " Educational Reformers," p. 84. 
 
67 
 
 It is generally claimed that the training of the mind by 
 means of suitable exercises to the systematic and continuous 
 performance of those activities which, on account of the 
 efEort which they require, we call " mental work " is the most 
 important function of the school; and Mr. Spencer, the only 
 educational writer of recent times who seems to exalt the 
 knowledge rather than the training side of education, does so 
 because he believes that the mental activities have been devel- 
 oped from their simplest manifestations in the lower animals 
 through the exercise of the mind in acquiring the knowledge 
 most useful at the time to the individual, and that, consequent- 
 ly, the same kind of exercise will prove most efficient for their 
 future development. 
 
 If it is true that training to mental efficiency is the highest 
 function of the school, it becomes important for us to know in 
 what particular line this training can be made most effective 
 with young children. On one point we are all agreed: A 
 faculty can be strengthened only by exercise in the per- 
 formance of its function. Obviously, then, it is folly to attempt 
 to train the mind in some process for which it has not had the 
 necessary preparation. Counting must always precede addition, 
 and addition must precede multiplication. In the same way, 
 observation and comparison must precede all acquisition of 
 knowledge by means of the imagination. The mind can picture 
 to itself by means of the imagination only those things or 
 phenomena which it has perceived through the senses, or other 
 things and phenomena which difEer but slightly from those 
 which it has perceived; and in the latter case, only by compar- 
 ing the description or picture of the unknown thing or phenom- 
 enon with the mental picture of the thing or phenomenon 
 which it has perceived. Clearly, then, a systematic training 
 in observation and comparison becomes a very important func- 
 tion of the primary school. 
 
 But comparison has for its purpose the formation of general 
 notions, or concepts, and teaching which does not ultimately 
 lead to general principles and definitions has failed in one of its 
 most important functions. The danger in most cases, however, 
 is not that the pupils will not generalize, but that they will 
 reach their generalizations too soon and from insufficient data, 
 5 
 
and that definitions and general principles will be given them 
 to learn, instead of being developed by the natural mental proc- 
 esses of the children themselves. For this reason, the young 
 child should have an extended training in comparing objects 
 and simple ideas before stating the results of his comparisons 
 as general principles. I cannot refrain from laying special 
 stress on this point; for, to my mind, it represents the great- 
 est fault in the reasoning of the whole race. It is not on 
 account of differences in the logical process that such differ- 
 ences of opinion exist on all important questions, but because 
 the generalizations upon which the logic is based have been 
 reached through a different set of experiences for each indi- 
 vidual. 
 
 Another kind of training which all are agreed that the 
 public school should give is the training to the expression of 
 thought in suitable language. This is important, not only 
 because it enables the child to communicate his thoughts to 
 others, but also because exercise in accurate and elegant expres- 
 sion is one of the best means of cultivating the habit of clear 
 and accurate thinking. 
 
 But the training to the expression of thought presupposes 
 that the child has thoughts to express. The repetition of the 
 words of another has long been mistaken by teachers for the 
 expression of the thought which originally called forth those 
 words; but since Mr. Edison has so successfully accomplished 
 this operation by machinery, the importance of training chil- 
 dren to it has been much diminished, and it is becoming quite 
 generally admitted that the demands of the day are for people 
 who can speak their own thoughts with clearness and direct- 
 ness. But we have before seen that to awaken the mental 
 activity of children and thus make possible the expression of 
 thought, we must appeal largely to their sense perception ; con- 
 sequently the conditions most favorable to training in observa- 
 tion and comparison are also best suited to train the children 
 to the expression of thought. 
 
 Up to this point, it would seem that there can be little 
 difference of opinion as to the nature of the mental training 
 which should be given by the primary school. It should 
 unquestionably train the child in the performance of those 
 
69 
 
 processes upon which he is dependent for all his knowledge at 
 the time and by which he must acquire all the materials for his 
 future mental acquisitions, and it must give training in that 
 process by which he is enabled to communicate his thoughts 
 to others and, in turn, acquire a knowledge of other people's 
 thoughts, and by which process he, at the same time, gives 
 definiteness and permanence to his own ideas. 
 
 But this is not the whole of the work of the primary school. 
 The child must also be taught those things which are the most 
 important for him to know as a preparation for life, and with- 
 out which his means of mental acquisition would always be 
 those of a child. In other words, he must be taught the facts 
 of his relation to the rest of the creation, without which 
 knowledge he will be seriously hampered in the struggle for 
 existence; and he must master the means of communication 
 afforded by written language. 
 
 To my mind, then, the functions of the primary school are 
 as follows: It must train its children in the process of acquir- 
 ing knowledge through the senses, in the process of compari- 
 son, by which process only it is possible to arrive at general 
 notions, in the process of expressing thought in suitable 
 language, by which means only the child can communicate 
 with other persons, and by which his own ideas attain a 
 definiteness and permanence which could be acquired in no 
 other way ; and it must aid the child in acquiring that knowl- 
 edge of his relations to other beings and to the forces of nature 
 which is most important to him at this stage of his life, and 
 must give him the means of communicating with other minds 
 which is afforded by written language. 
 
 In deciding upon the material most suitable for the pur- 
 poses just outlined, several considerations must be kept in mind. 
 First, and most important, the material must of itself be in- 
 teresting to the child. Sully says, " There is no distinct think- 
 ing, no vivid feeling, and no deliberate action without atten- 
 tion. This co-operation of attention is especially conspicuous 
 in the case of the intellectual operations." And it is clear to 
 all of us that without this active co-operation of the mind, no 
 intellectual activity worthy of the name can take place. But 
 we attend only to those] things which interest us. Who 
 
70 
 
 of us has not, under the imperative eommaad of the teacher to 
 pay attention to the lesson, cudgeled his brain until his nerv- 
 ous force was exhausted in the vain efEort to set in motion 
 some train of mental activity which was for the time entirely 
 beyond his control? And who has not, in a similar manner, 
 ignominiously failed to drive from his mind some train of 
 thought which for the time had an overpowering interest for 
 him, that he might attend to the work which the ruling powers 
 of the school had decided was best adapted to give suitable ex- 
 ercise to his mental faculties? 
 
 It is true that by an excessive expenditure of nervous force 
 we may be able to fix our attention for a time on things not of 
 themselves interesting to us, but in this case, on account of the 
 excessive exhaustion of nervous energy, the attention cannot 
 be long sustained. Indeed, I believe that most of my audience 
 will agree that the principal cause of exhaustion of their men- 
 tal energy in school was due to their efforts to pay attention to 
 things which had no interest for them. It is plain, then, that 
 if the studies of the primary school could be based upon mate- 
 rial which would of itself call forth the mental activity for 
 which children of that age are so noted outside of school, it 
 would insure a great saving of nervous energy on the part of 
 both pupils and teacher, besides assuring a proper exercise of 
 those faculties which it is the province of the school to culti- 
 vate. 
 
 But it is not enough that the material selected for primary 
 teaching should be interesting to the children. One of the 
 principal functions of the school is to give useful knowledge. 
 The knowledge of most use to the child, as well as to the man, 
 is the knowledge of his relations to the universe in which he 
 lives. These relations must, in great measure, be learned by 
 experience; and since only the most simple relations are appar- 
 ent to children of primary school age, the material studied by 
 the child must be that which is most nearly and plainly re- 
 lated to him. Again, it is not enough to determine what mate- 
 rial would be most useful to children could it be provided for 
 them. Any course of study prepared for the primary schools 
 of the state must be based upon material which is everywhere 
 easily obtainable. 
 
71 
 
 The first imporfcaut question, then, which presents itself 
 for our consideration is, What material most nearly fulfills the 
 above requirements? I am sure that all will agree with me 
 that the material which is generally used as a basis for the in- 
 struction of the primary schools answers to only one of these 
 requirements; viz., it is easily obtained. Even in the best 
 school systems of the state, a very large proportion of the time 
 of the first two years is taken up in teaching the children to 
 read from books. Important and necessary as this acquirement 
 is, it does not accomplish any of the purposes of mental training 
 to which we would attach so much importance. The sense train- 
 ing which a child gets in observing the one or more words which 
 are selected as his lesson for the day, when compared with the 
 number of equally good and careful observations which he 
 would make in the same time outside of school, sinks into in- 
 significance. The comparisons which it is possible for him to 
 make between the words which he is learning are too few to 
 dignify with the name of mental exercise; the number of new 
 ideas which he acquires is zero, because it is a dictum of pri- 
 mary teaching that the symbols to be learned must be those 
 which stand for familiar ideas, or, in other language, the first 
 words which the child learns to read must be those which are 
 already in his vocabulary; and the opportunities for the ex- 
 pression of thought may be reduced to a minimum by closing 
 the senses — the only avenues by which thought can be awak- 
 ened in children of this age — to all interesting, and hence 
 natural, stimuli. And yet every one is sorrowfully contrasting 
 the language expression of the play-ground with that of the 
 school-room, and we never attend an institute or a teachers' 
 association that we do not hear some one explain his new and 
 improved method of teaching children to read with natural ex- 
 pression. 
 
 To those teachers who recognize the necessity of providing 
 some means for calling forth the mental activities of the chil- 
 dren under tbeir care, two kinds of material have been sug- 
 gested; viz., the consideration of natural objects and phe- 
 nomena, and the study of the imaginative story. While noth- 
 ing is farther from the mind of the writer than to say anything 
 which could detract from the undoubted educational value of 
 
72 
 
 imaginative literature as a means of training in language, and 
 its still greater value as a means of inculcating moral truths, 
 yet it VFOuld seem that for the purposes of primary instruction 
 as outlined in this paper, the natural sciences ofFer a still 
 more valuable material. If it is true that the training to the 
 acquisition of accurate knowledge through the senses should 
 precede the training to the acquisition of knowledge by means 
 of the imagination, then the study of natural objects and 
 phenomena should precede the study of imaginative literature. 
 It is also true that the attempt to build up in the mind of the 
 child by means of the imagination pictures of objects and 
 phenomena differing widely from his experience, can end only 
 in a wretched confusion of indistinct mental images. 
 
 One of the mental weaknesses of childhood is the inability 
 to distinguish between the memory of a sense perception and 
 the memory of a picture which has been built up by the imag- 
 ination. It is on account of this weakness that children are so 
 generally untruthful. The same weakness exists among peo- 
 ple of limited civilization throughout the world, and is the 
 cause of many of the myths and superstitions which have come 
 down to us as history. If the training of the school-room is 
 such as to give undue importance to these imaginary objects 
 and phenomena, this weakness is still further exaggerated; and 
 if, in connection with this, the imaginary objects and relations 
 are untrue to nature, the child is being educated in supersti- 
 tion. It would seem, then, that while the carefully selected 
 fairy tale may become, in the hands of the thoughtful teacher, 
 a valuable means of mental and moral training, in the hands of 
 the less thoughtful teacher, it may degenerate into an instru- 
 ment of positive harm to the child; and that in no case can it 
 give the mental training most important to the child of the 
 primary school age. 
 
 The natural sciences, on the other hand, seem to provide 
 the material which fulfills more nearly than anything else the 
 requirements which we have laid down. In the first place, 
 they provide the material most interesting in itself to chil- 
 dren. It is unnecessary to argue this point before an audience of 
 observing teachers. No one has failed to notice the mental 
 activity called forth in children by birds and butterflies, flow- 
 
73 
 
 ers and pebbles, tbe rainbow and the snow storm. Especially 
 is this interest manifested in living beings, and one of the 
 chief sources of the child's interest in his inanimate playthings 
 is in attributing to them the functions of life. If we can learn 
 anything from the teachings of nature, it is plain that living 
 animals provide the best material for calling forth in a natur- 
 al manner the mental activities of children. 
 
 But since we wish the ideas which the child acquires from 
 his study to be useful to him, and since the most useful ideas 
 are those which are concerned with our relations to the uni- 
 verse, of which we are a part, we have decided that the material 
 selected for the child to study must be closely related to him, 
 and in such a way that he can discover for himself the relation. 
 Please do not understand me to say that the moral relations of 
 the child to his fellows, and his religious relations to the 
 Creator are of less importance than the so-called physical rela- 
 tions of the child to his environment; but these, being abstract, 
 and difficult or impossible to teach to a child by experience, 
 are not suitable subjects for primary instruction, except as 
 they can be taught incidentally, Many of the relations be- 
 tween the child and the living animals most nearly like him 
 are, on the other hand, easily discovered by him; and while 
 they provide exercise in the processes of observation and com- 
 parison, they also furnish suitable material for training to the 
 expression of thought. This is especially true if the observa- 
 tions and comparisons are directed to phenomena rather than 
 to bodily structure. In the opinion of the writer, the princi- 
 pal reason why so little success has been achieved in primary 
 science teaching is because the whole attention of the children 
 has been directed to the observation of structure with a view 
 to classification, rather than to those phenomena which are 
 common to the child and the animals which he is studying, 
 and which are, accordingly, of themselves interesting to him. 
 If it is true that living animals are more interesting to the 
 child than inanimate objects, it is because the phenomena of 
 life are more interesting to him than the facts of structure, and 
 hence it is important that the study of the functions of ani- 
 mal life should precede the study of the structure of animal 
 bodies. By means of the interest awakened in this part of the 
 
74 
 
 subject, the attention can readily be carried over to the study 
 of the structures which are associated with a given function. 
 In this way, the studies of comparative physiology, psychology, 
 and anatomy go hand in hand from the first, and all the 
 knowledge acquired by the child has that systematic relation 
 to all his other knowledge which is characteristic of the mate- 
 rial of a true science. 
 
 The importance of this order of study is still more mani- 
 fest when we attempt to use the material derived from the 
 observations of the children for teaching reading and language. 
 Since the chief functions of animal life are similar in the child 
 and in the animals which he is studying, the vocabulary which 
 he will use in expressing his thoughts will be limited and the 
 words will be often repeated in new relations, thus furnishing 
 excellent material for the preparation of reading lessons. In 
 the language-training of the primary grades, one of the most 
 important objects is the cultivation of the power of continuous 
 thought and expression. It has been a valid criticism of much 
 of the language-training based upon the study of science that 
 it consisted of disconnected and unrelated statements. This 
 was necessarily true as long as the children were trained to 
 make disconnected observations, and in describing the parts of 
 an animal or plant only disconnected observations are possible. 
 
 The one essential requisite for continuous discourse is con- 
 tinuous thought. To awaken continuous thought, the material 
 used must arouse an abiding interest, and each observation 
 must be so related to those which have preceded it and those 
 which are to follow it as to make a coherent whole. If the 
 observations are directed to the way in which certain functions 
 of animal life are performed in different animals, or to the rela- 
 tions between a certain function and the structures by which 
 it is performed, we have such a coherent series of observations, 
 and the train of thought awakened by them is necessarily con- 
 tinuous. It is generally conceded that no relation of ideas is 
 more efficient in aiding the mind to recall past experiences or 
 conclusions than the association of cause and effect. In the 
 series of observations and conclusions which we have been con- 
 sidering, the relation of cause and effect has been the central 
 thought upon which nearly all the observations and compari- 
 
75 
 
 soas have been based, consequently the notions formed are all 
 related to each other by this most suggestive association, and 
 become in reality a continuous train of thought which can 
 find expression only in continuous discourse. 
 
 It seems, then, to the writer, that the natural sciences, and 
 among the materials of natural science, living animals, fulfill 
 most satisfactorily the requirements of a suitable material for 
 primary instruction. They are naturally interesting to the 
 child, and hence awaken his spontaneous mental activity; they 
 are closely related to him and to one another, and in such a way 
 that he can discover the relations, and hence they provide for 
 suitable exercise in observation and comparison, and the gener- 
 alizations which he makes are of the kind most useful to him, 
 because they are concerned with his relations to the world in 
 which he lives; the notions derived from their study may be so 
 related to each other by the association of cause and effect as 
 to form a continuous train of thought and to find expression 
 only in continuous discourse, and on account of the limited 
 number of words needed for their expression they may pro- 
 vide excellent material for the preparation of reading lessons; 
 and, finally, this material is so universally distributed as to be 
 within the reach of every one. 
 
 What has been said of living animals is also to a large 
 extent true of plants and, in a less degree, of minerals. In 
 both of the last-mentioned departments of natural history, 
 there is also frequently a marked aesthetic interest, due to the 
 beauty of the flower or the crystal. In the case of plants, this 
 study of the relation of function to structure may still be pur- 
 sued with great interest. The relatious of dependence between 
 animals and plants may well furnish the starting point for the 
 study of botany, and the interest which has been aroused in 
 the study of animals may thus be carried over to the study of 
 the nearly related plant. In this line, the study of insect fer- 
 tilization of plants and the adaptation of the structure of 
 plants to the performance of this function may well furnish a 
 very interesting and instructive chapter. Among the subjects 
 which botany alone offers, the study of plant germination, con- 
 cerned as it is with the apparent beginning of a new life, is 
 
76 
 
 always interesting to children of all ages, and seems to have a 
 peculiar attraction for even the trained biologist. 
 
 This study of the inter-relations of the great groups of 
 organic beings will soon lead the pupil to see that as animals 
 must feed upon plants and other animals, it is important for 
 the preservation of both the plants and animals which are used 
 for food that they have some rapid way of reproducing their 
 species and some means of protecting themselves from their 
 enemies, and then the study of the ways in which plants and 
 animals protect themselves from their enemies becomes one of 
 the best imaginable fields for observation and comparison. And 
 thus we might enlarge upon our subject, and we should still find 
 that each observation and generalization but paves the way for 
 another, and that since each observation is closely and naturally 
 related to the whole series of observations which have preceded 
 it, the interest is cumulative throughout the whole series. 
 
 It is also worth our while to note that the ideas which the 
 children derive from this study are the fundamental notions of 
 modern thought. The political economy, the religion, the 
 ethics of to-day are permeated with the notions derived from 
 the study of the natural sciences, and in so far as they difEer 
 from the politics, religion, and ethics of the past century, this 
 difference can be traced to the spread of scientific ideas, the 
 education of the people in the scientific method of thinking, 
 and the more general acceptance of that greatest of all 
 scientific inductions, the belief in the uniformity of nature. 
 Thus we are paving the way from the first for the development 
 in the mind of the child of the most fruitful concepts of 
 modern thought, while we are training him in that method of 
 thinking which, more than anything else, distinguishes the 
 great minds of to-day from those of the past. 
 
 Thus far we have discussed the aim and material of our 
 primary course in science; it yet remains to say a few words 
 about the method of instruction. I approach this phase of the 
 discussion with reluctance, because to those teachers who appre- 
 ciate clearly the aim of this fundamental primary work, the 
 method of accomplishing this aim is self evident, while those 
 who teach without a definite aim are sure to have some pet 
 method of instruction which they feel called upon to explain 
 
77 
 
 and defend upon the slightest provocation. It accordingly 
 happens that the discussions in our teachers' meetings nearly 
 all turn upon something that has been said concerning some 
 more or less popular teaching device, rather than upon the edu- 
 cational principles involved. I shall, accordingly, try to limit 
 my discussion of method to those points which seem essential 
 to the accomplishment of the proposed aim. And the first 
 proposition which I wish to make, and the one which meets 
 with the severest criticism from many of our prominent educa- 
 tional writers, is this: scientific training cannot be acquired 
 from the study of a text-book. It would seem unnecessary to 
 mention this point in connection with primary instruction, 
 were it not for the fact that there are already several books in 
 the market which are intended to give children this elementary 
 scientific knowledge of which we have spoken, without the 
 effort of observing and reasoning on the part of the children, 
 and many of our leading writers on educational subjects still 
 indorse this " labor-saving " method for older pupils. We 
 have, however, tried to make it plain that this mental exertion 
 on the part of the child is the one thing above all others which 
 we wish to encourage. Anything, then, which comes between 
 the child and the objects of his observations and comparisons 
 is a hindrance rather than an aid. We have maintained that 
 the expression of the child's own thought in suitable language 
 is something to encourage, and we all know that any method 
 by which a thought becomes associated only with some set 
 form of words is a hindrance to freedom of expression. We 
 believe that the cultivation of an abiding interest in the works 
 of nature, and especially a sympathetic interest in living 
 beings, is one of the greatest functions of education, and we 
 know that to become thoroughly interested in any object, we 
 must become well acquainted with it. And so we might go 
 over the whole ground. The chief aims of science study are 
 defeated by approaching the subject by the literary method. 
 
 Do not understand me to say that I would keep the chil- 
 dren from reading books about science. The more they are 
 interested in scientific studies, the more scientific books they 
 will want to read, and the more they should read. To the child 
 who has become interested in the study of animals and plants, 
 
78 
 
 one of the chief incentives to learn to read and write is that 
 he may be able to learn of the observations of others, or may 
 record his own observations. 
 
 Neither do I wish to be understood as indorsing any of 
 the bosh which the opponents of science study put into the 
 mouths of hypothetical writers on science teaching, and then 
 proceed to criticise; such, for example, as " Never tell a child 
 anything which he can find out from his own investigation." 
 There are times when children need to be told many things 
 which they cannot afford to find out from their own experience. 
 What I do wish to repeat, and the oftener and the more 
 emphatically the better, is that the interposition of a text- 
 book or verbal description between the child and the subject of 
 his observations and comparisons is fatal to all real training in 
 observation, comparison, and expression. 
 
 But there is another method of teaching which, while it is 
 indorsed, at least in theory, by many good teachers of science, 
 seems to me also to defeat some of the chief aims of primary 
 study. It is the method of allowing the children to make 
 observations for themselves, entirely undirected by the teacher. 
 It is based upon the notion that it is not natural for children 
 to observe or think systematically, and hence it is going con- 
 trary to nature to train them to systematic observation and 
 thinking. While it is undoubtedly true that children in their 
 play do not make systematic observations, and that the habit 
 of systematic observing and thinking belongs only to the 
 trained mind, either of the child or the adult, we should not 
 forget that it is exactly this difference between the trained and 
 the untrained mind which we, as teachers, are trying to pro- 
 duce. It is like the notion of giving the child only the fanci- 
 ful in literature to read, because he has not yet learned to dis- 
 tinguish it from the representation of the real. Mental effi- 
 ciency in any line means the power of systematic and continu- 
 ous thinking in that line, and it is agreed by all that one of 
 the chief functions of the school is to train to mental efficiency. 
 
 But if we are not to tell the children what to see, how 
 are we to direct their observations? The answer is simple. 
 Children may be set to making observations and comparisons 
 for the purpose of finding the answer to some definite question 
 
79 
 
 which has been suggested by themselves or their teacher. But 
 allow me to say emphatically that children should never be set 
 to going through the form of finding out things which they 
 know perfectly well already. 
 
 The true work of the science teacher is to suggest to 
 the children questions the answers to which they must 
 find out from their own investigations, and which will be 
 of value to them. And this is by no means a simple task, 
 as any one will testify who has tried to arrange such 
 a set of qijestions for a single class. A course of study 
 in this sense will be such a set of questions adapted to the 
 condition of the pupils; a set which will tax their pow- 
 ers enough to insure a development of strength, but will not 
 be so difficult as to discourage them; which will increase their 
 stock of useful knowledge, but will not lead them so far from 
 familiar ideas as to cause them to lose sight of their relations, 
 and hence to lose interest in the subject; and which will, at all 
 times, be adapted to the material at hand. These and the 
 many more considerations to be kept in mind, make the prep- 
 aration of such a course of study extremely difficult for even a 
 single class, and I feel sure that you will pardon me for not 
 presenting such a course of study adapted to all the schools of 
 the state. It is apparent that such an outline of study can be 
 of value to others than the one by whom it was prepared only 
 as a means of suggesting work which they can adapt to the 
 needs of the classes under their charge. Such a course, worked 
 out by a practical science teacher and tested with his classes, 
 would be of great value to teachers who have no definite notion 
 of the capabilities of children for doing this kind of work. 
 Some commendable outlines of this kind have already been 
 prepared, the most important one I have seen being the " Out- 
 lines of Natural Science " published by Prof. Wilbur S. Jack- 
 man, of the Cook County Normal School. More encouraging 
 to me, however, than any outline of study is the work which is 
 being done by teachers throughout the state, from the best 
 primary schools of cities to the "little red school house " on 
 the prairie. And it is a pleasure to know that in facilities for 
 doing this work, the country school ma'am is as well equipped 
 as her more pretentious sister of the city, and I am happy to 
 
80 
 
 know that many country school teachers are undertaking 
 this work intelligently and successfully. 
 
 While I shall not, then, attempt to offer an outline of 
 study for the primary schools of the state, it may be well, even 
 at the risk of tiring you with repetitions, to mention some of 
 the considerations which must be kept in mind in preparing 
 such an outline and in presenting it to pupils. 
 
 First, since it is important that the child should learn as 
 early as possible the significance of the most important of his 
 bodily functions and their relations to the structures by which 
 they are performed, and since the easiest and most interesting 
 method of doing this is by comparing himself with some nearly 
 related animal which performs the same functions in a similar 
 manner to himself, the first animal selected for study should be 
 one closely related structurally to the child. It would accord- 
 ingly seem best to begin observation work with one of the 
 higher mammals. 
 
 Again, since the study of action should precede the study 
 of structure, the animal selected for study should be not only 
 alive, but active. The squirrel seems to fulfill the above re- 
 quirements as well as any of our common animals, and is 
 easily obtained and easily kept. 
 
 Since the training in comparison should occupy such a prom- 
 inent place in our method, this first animal should not only be 
 compared with the child, but with other similar animals with 
 which the child is already familiar. By this I do not mean that 
 he should be led to "discover" that "A squirrel has four legs," 
 "A horse has four legs," "A dog has four legs," etc., etc. 
 Neither should I care if he did not learn that all of the above 
 mentioned animals have back-bones, and hence are called ver- 
 tebrates. But a legitimate series of questions could be made, 
 for example, on the comparisons between the kinds of food 
 eaten, the methods of obtaining food, and the adaptation of 
 structure to the capture or collection of food in the case of 
 each of the animals mentioned. Then, as some of the animals 
 studied serve as food for other animals, a series of questions as 
 to hew each animal escapes or defends itself from its enemies; 
 where it makes its home, and why; what advantage, if any, it 
 gains from its color, and the like, might advantageously follow 
 
81 
 
 the first series. For some of the lines of comparison just out- 
 lined, the squirrel and rabbit would furnish excellent material 
 to those pupils who are somewhat acquainted with their habits 
 of life. While both must provide themselves with similar food 
 and must escape from similar enemies, their methods of doing 
 both are quite different, and the comparison of these habits and 
 the structural differences accompanying them could be made a 
 very fruitful subject for consideration by primary pupils. 
 
 After the child has begun to appreciate the fact that ani- 
 mals, and plants as well, do not always live under the conditions 
 most favorable for their existence, but that the habits and 
 conditions of life of most animals and plants are those which 
 have been forced upon them by other animals and plants in 
 the great struggle for food, he will ever afterward be inter- 
 ested in observing the manifold variations of structure which 
 have become necessary to adapt each animal for obtaining food 
 and air in that particular part of the earth which it is com- 
 pelled to inhabit. And this great principle is not beyond the 
 comprehension of primary children, as many teachers have 
 seen evidence to prove. 
 
 In passing downward in the scale of animal life, it seems 
 best that each step should be made comparatively short and 
 easy, especially at first. It is well known that children notice 
 resemblances much more readily than differences. This is 
 shown in the fact that they regularly apply to new and strange 
 objects the names of known objects which resemble them. This 
 being true, the animals selected for these early comparisons 
 should have many points of similarity. 
 
 What has been said is sufficient to suggest the line of 
 questioning which seems best adapted to calling into activity 
 the faculties which we wish to train, and to directing the 
 attention of the pupils to that line of thought which will be 
 most interesting and most useful to them in after life, as well 
 as at the present time. It yet remains to show how the material 
 furnished by this study can be used as a basis for language- 
 training, and for teaching reading. This part of our subject, 
 however, seems to require but little attention on our part. For 
 oral language-training, the value of this work is at once appar- 
 ent. If the lesson has been properly assigned, the children. 
 
82 
 
 when they come to the recitation, have thoughts which they 
 are ready and anxious to express, and, providing their attention 
 is not continually drawn from the subject in hand by comment- 
 ing on their use of language, they will speak as fluently and 
 naturally as on the play-ground. The conditions for expression 
 are, in fact, almost ideally favorable. The child has become 
 possessed of some information which he is anxious to impart to 
 his teacher and his fellows, and his audience is present and 
 equally anxious to learn of his discovery. For written com- 
 position, at a later stage, the material is just as valuable, and 
 if the habits and mode of life of some animal or animals be 
 taken for a subject rather than the description of the structure 
 of some animal, there will be. no difficulty about continuous 
 thought and expression, providing always that the child knows 
 from his own observations what he is asked to tell in composi- 
 tion. 
 
 The method of teaching reading from object lessons has, 
 in one form or another, been before the teachers so long that 
 they will have no difficulty in seeing how this material is 
 especially adapted to that work. The mechanical features of 
 the older methods are eliminated '.y giving the children read- 
 ing material which embodies their most recently acquired and 
 most interesting thoughts. The- "e not memorizing the sym- 
 bols of words which suggest no luoughb to them, or, worse 
 yet, the amputated members of 'vords which cannot possibly 
 express an idea, much less suggu^tone to anybody; but they are 
 learning a new method of expressing and preserving the 
 thoughts which are at that particular time of overwhelming 
 interest to them. 
 
 Please bear in mind, however, that this method is not sug- 
 gested as a device for teaching reading, but that the teaching 
 of reading is recognized as onK one, and not the most import- 
 ant one at that, of the aims * primary instruction, conse- 
 quently the question as to w 'a child will learn to read 
 as rapidly by this method as when ais whole time is taken up 
 with some device for learning to read, has no bearing upon 
 this discussion. I am happy to say, however, that among the 
 teachers of my acquaintance who have tried to teach reading 
 in this manner, there is a universal agreement that the child 
 
83 
 
 will learn to read as early by this method as by any other. T 
 do not, as I said before, mention this as one of the chief merits 
 of the method, but because the chief objections generally urged 
 against it come from the fact that it renders useless somebody's 
 little reading device. 
 
 And now, in leaving this subject in your hands for discus- 
 sion, I wish to ask you to condemn mercilessly any false doc- 
 trine which I may have uttered, but to meet the question fair- 
 ly, as I have tried to state it, on the grounds of the accepted 
 principles of education. And if you believe, as I do most 
 emphatically, that this subject of primary instruction in science 
 is one of the most important subjects that can come before us 
 as teachers, let me ask you to give it your earnest consideration 
 for at least one year, that we may come to the next meeting 
 of this Association much better prepared than at present to 
 decide upon a course of science study for the first four years of 
 school. 
 
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 Educational Papers, 1889-1890. 
 
 ,. 3 1924 031 784 188 
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