Under mammals we may study, on the one hand the rat problem and methods of control, on the other hand we may make a survey of the source of meats, fats, and oils which man uses or may use. Under fishes we may study the work of the United States Bureau of Fisheries; and we may learn to identify the common fishes which are likely to be found in the market, their food values, their habits, and therefore the seasons that we are likely to get them fresh. Under mollusks and crustaceans we may study oysters, clams, lobsters, and crabs from the same angles as fishes. Under both of the foregoing heads we may do social service for future generations by spreading information as to measures necessary for preventing the depletion of supply. Under fungi we may study the vitamin properties of yeast and its other uses to man; we may study the value of nitrifying bacteria to the soil, and how to harbor them. Some clover from the school yard may be pulled up to show the nodules to the pupils. We may teach how to prevent growth of molds and mildews in and about the house. Again, we may teach pupils to recognize a few of the edible mushrooms and a few of the poisonous ones; in general we may teach what a person's reaction towards mushrooms should be. And now, finally, I am coming to the topic in biology teaching whose potentialities I want to emphasize. I believe that there is great need for it, and I have not seen it adequately treated in any syllabus that I have ever examined. I refer to the aesthetic side of biology, call it nature study if you will. At any rate it is that topic whose chief social value lies under the head of beauty. Nature study is inseparably a part of elementary biology,that is a doctrine that I shall continue to preach to all whose ears shall hear me. Suffused through the whole subject should be the vibrant strain of that love of nature which, in after years, may mean to many children one of the most precious recollections of youth. The daisied fields; the butterflies; the birds. Yes, nature should be studied for her own sake. It appeals to the primitive within us and adds resourcefulness and balance to our lives. The interests of most children demand it; yet where is the responsible person to champion their cause? Where is the place more fitting than in the study of life under the master? What more practical way of sending them out into the open air with wholesome interests? The contents of any public library will show the native interest. But where in our curriculum is all this material and all this interest capitalized, organized, and utilized for worthy ends? It is a wonderful background for the harder and colder facts of biology. Unhappy he who has never known it,--he who has arrived at the adult stage with deficient apperceptions of nature,the person who is unable to take a mere walk along a country road without finding it dull and monotonous. Henry David Thoreau has something to give to each one of us. And this mere love of nature contributes its mite worth mentioning towards social stability. Love of nature means love of the country and love of the country means more homes with home gardens, therefore more independence, less congestion, less industrial hysteria. I cannot drop the subject of nature study until I have defined roughly its scope and character. and character. In the sense that I am using it nature study means appreciative observation of the common living things about us. It is that branch of elementary biology which leaves the mind free to correlate the subject with art and poetry, and to roam into topics whose sole values seem to be the satisfaction of native curiosity pure and simple. It differs from the forms of nature study in the early grades in that it is not juvenile; there is no anthropomorphosis or attempts of any sort to use the imagination in puerile ways. It differs from the later forms of elementary school nature study in that it is done more carefully; is more rationalized. Owing to its various correlations, it is as if it were the root of our biological tree while the other parts of elementary biology is the trunk. It notices beauty of form and color; it brings out sympathetic understanding of birds and lower animals. The girls are encouraged to make collections of butterflies and hunt for their names; the boys to make general collections of insects and also find out what they are. The game is thoroughly enjoyed, and credits are given. Birds and all sorts of living things are observed, and nature notes taken. While the chief value of nature study itself lies under the head of beauty other values are constantly springing furtively into the field. The study of snakes (appealing to boys) may bring out the fact that fear of our common ones is quite unwarranted. For an intelligent human being it seems a pity, through ignorance, to be bluffed and stirred by the apprehensive hissings of the hog-nosed snake when the whole thing is really such a good joke. It seems uneconomical for the same person to "stamp bravely" upon our poor insectivorous little grass or green snake which, as Raymond L. Ditmars, the famous ophidologist has said, "could scarcely put up a good battle with a fairsized grasshopper." Children's lives are not made any more pleasant by useless fears or by such unknowing myths as "toads give you warts if you handle them." I believe that there is value in anything which puts man into understanding relationship with his environment. The child's curiosity about living things is nature's way of calling for adjustment with them. In the primitive state that adjustment was vital; to-day it is a joy to exercise and has still some value within itself. As a stimulant for study of further biological truths it is almost indispensable. We need biology,-rational, human, social, natural biology,— but how are we going to get it? It is obviously true that biology instruction cannot rise above the level of its instructors. And our colleges and universities are not turning out men who understand elementary biology and practice it. They furnish an infinite collection of the branches and branchlets and twigs of our tree of biological knowledge, but they do not furnish the root and trunk. In this respect let us hear a few words from Dr. Otis W. Caldwell, now Director of the Lincoln School of Teachers College, New York City. We all know of the work of Dr. Caldwell in the field of secondary school science. "During the past few years (the words were written six years ago) there has grown up a body of knowledge which relates to biological teaching. This body of knowledge differs widely from the methodology of the past decades, but consists of exact studies made in a scientific way regarding the problem of the rise of biological subjects in education. Consideration of these matters cannot longer be safely omitted from the training of the prospective biology teachers. The waste in teaching efficiency and pupil opportunity will be great enough, even when all of the limited information upon biological teaching has been considered. Furthermore, this field offers quite as large as outlook for scientific research as do strictly academic fields. "Such a program of rearrangement of collegiate training for those who are to enter biological teaching is quite possible within the range of college years as they now stand. But this program involves a frank recognition of the kind of scholastic and professional training needed by high school teachers of biology." Mr. James E. Peabody, of the Morris High School, New York City, gave us some statistics in this respect. In an article written in 1914 he told us that he sent out series of questions to the biology departments of twenty of the colleges and universities in New York and New England. All answered, but, he goes on to say, "only two or three of these institutions make any claim of directly preparing teachers for secondary school work, and so far as I can gather, the courses in our colleges and universities are presented almost wholly from the standpoint of pure science, not from that of the relation of biology to human welfare." From many angles we hear the same story, even though teaching work is not involved. Let us listen to what Dr. W. F. Hornaday thinks of the view-point of some of the university men in biology. All of us know Dr. Hornaday as the author of "Our Vanishing Wild Life" and as a man of action in promoting protection mea sures. "Columbia University of New York, has a very large and strong corps of zoological professors in its department of biology. No living organism is too small or too worthless to be studied by high grade men; but does any man of Columbia ever raise his voice, actively and determinedly, for the preservation of our fauna, or any other fauna? Columbia should give the services of one whole man to the cause. "These are men whose zoological ideas soar so high that they cannot see the slaughter of wild creatures that is so furiously proceeding on this blood-stained earth. We don't want to hear about the "behavior" of protozoans while our best song birds are being exterminated by negroes and poor whites." However unreasonable we may consider some parts of this statement of Dr. Hornaday, we must recognize that there is mixed with it all a fundamental truth that we can scarcely ignore. There is within us a sense of perspective and proportion that whispers to us that somewhere along the line our services must reach out and tie themselves up with social welfare. I, for one, am willing to admit, in this age of specialization, that the advanced student of science may righteously pursue his own path, and leave the correlation to others. But I am not willing to admit that this type of advanced science is adequate preparation for the far-reaching responsibilites of a prospective teacher of elementary biology. I repeat, elementary biology is a field of unusual potentialities for social service. It brings to the humblest rural school many messages that humanity needs. But we need teachers, and we need university courses which will give us teachers. We need teachers with vision, with a sense of proportion, with a sense of correlation, with broad human sympathies,-teachers that can root the study of life down into the very foundation of things,not teachers who will give the pupils hard, mechanistic, unfeeling, and animal-like views of life, but teachers who can pause and say: "Flower in the crannied wall I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand |