The acquisition of new points of view makes for increased thoroughness of comprehension. The class that understands the causes of the American Revolution from the American point of view knows of the navigation laws, the quartering of soldiers in American homes, the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre,—the usual provocations that strained patience to the breaking point. The college teacher of American history who spends time on the riots in New York in which a greater number of colonists was killed than in Boston, who teaches in detail the various acts forbidding the manufacture of hats and of iron ware, or the protests against English practices in the colonies made by British merchants, etc., is adding more facts, but he may only be intensifying the erroneous conclusion that the students have formed in earlier and less complete courses. The topic, "Causes of the American Revolution," grows in thoroughness, not through the addition of these facts but through the presentation of new interpretations of the practices of the English. When we explain that the English believed in virtual and not actual representation, the students see a new meaning in "taxation without representation." When the students learn that the English government decided on a new economic and industrial policy which planned to have the mother country specialize in manufacture and transportation and the colonies in production of raw materials, the students see reason, though not necessarily justice, in the acts prohibiting Americans from various forms of manufacture and transportational activities. These new facts modify in the minds of students the point of view so often given in elementary courses, that the War for Independence was caused by sheer British meanness and injustice, by her policy of reckless repression.
It is not always possible to give new points of view to all knowledge in all subjects. There are cases in which there is only one point of view or where students may not be ready for a new interpretation because of their limited mastery of a new field of knowledge. Under these conditions an added point of view is a source of confusion rather than an aid to clearer comprehension. Some subjects, like the social sciences, naturally allow for richer interpretations. Others, like the languages and the physical sciences, present only very limited opportunities; in the biological sciences the possibilities, though not as rich as in the social sciences, are numerous and productive of good results.
Comparison is a second means of producing thoroughness of comprehension. Good teaching abounds in comparisons which are introduced at the end of every important topic rather than reserved for examination questions. Comparisons used liberally at every logical pause in the development of a subject always give an added viewpoint, review early subject matter incidentally, stir thought, and make for better organization. How much more clearly are the causes of the War of 1812 understood after they are compared with those that brought on the Revolutionary War! How much more definite are the causes of the American Revolution when compared with those that brought on the French Revolution! A writer, a school, or a movement in English literature may be understood when studied by itself; but how is comprehension deepened when each is compared with another writer or school or movement! Comparison of perception and conception or appreciation and association in psychology, makes each activity stand out clearer in the mind of the student. Compare the laws of rent, wage, profit, and interest in economics, and not only each is better understood but the basic laws of distribution are readily derived by the student. Similarly, comparisons in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and the entire range of collegiate subjects give increased comprehension, useful though incidental reviews, and greater unification of knowledge, as well as added points of view.
Correlation as a means of producing thoroughness is closely allied to comparison. Correlation relates kindred topics of different subjects, while comparison points out relations in the same subject. The instructor who correlates the history of education with the political and economic history that the student learned in another course is unifying related experience, reducing the field of knowledge, introducing logical organization, and adding new interpretations to facts already acquired. Similarly, teaching must be enriched by correlating physics and mathematics, chemistry and physics, literature and music, history of literature and general history, until instruction has taken advantage of every vital relation among subjects. With the growth of specialized subjects there is an unfortunate tendency toward isolation until the untrained mind looks upon the curriculum as a series of unrelated experiences, each rivaling the other in its claim to importance.
The advantage of correlation will remain lost in college teaching as long as each instructor regards himself as a specialized investigator concerned with teaching his subject rather than his students. How many college teachers know what subjects their students have already taken, or knowing the names of these subjects, have a general knowledge of their content? The college professor of the preceding generation was a cultured gentleman whose general scholarship transcended the limits of his specialty. He understood and knew the curriculum as a whole. Because of changes in every phase of our civilization, his successor has a deeper but a narrower knowledge. He knows little of the work of his students outside of his own subject. He does not relate and correlate the ever growing field of knowledge; he merely adds—by the introduction of his own mass of facts—to the isolation which characterizes the parts of college curricula. This tendency must be counteracted, not by interfering with the scholastic interests of any instructor, but by occasional conferences of instructors of allied subjects in order to agree on common meeting grounds, on points of correlation, on useful repetitions, and on the elimination of needless duplications. Such pedagogical conferences are rare because college teachers are not alive to the need of reform in methods of college teaching.
Thoroughness results from increase in the number of applications of knowledge. The introduction of the functional view into teaching brings with it a realization of the vital needs of increased ways of applying the experience we present to students. As the laws of physics, mathematics, biology, composition, economics, etc., are applied to a number of specific instances, the generalization grows in meaning and in force. Specific cases vary, and, varying, give new color and new meaning to the laws that are applied to explain them. How much a law in chemistry means after it is applied to specific instances in industry, human and animal physiology, plant life, or engineering! The equation learned in descriptive geometry may be understood, but it never means so much as when it is applied to specific problems in engineering. Applications give added insight into knowledge and therefore make for greater thoroughness of comprehension.
Locke's Blank Paper Theory, enunciated centuries ago, has been repeatedly and triumphantly refuted even by tyros in psychology, but in educational practices it continues to hold sway. College teaching too frequently proceeds on the assumption that the mind is an aching void anxiously awaiting the generous contributions of knowledge to be made by the teacher. College examinations usually test for multiplicity of facts acquired, rather than for power developed. College teaching usually does not perceive that the mind is a reacting machine containing a vast amount of pent-up potential energy which is ready to react upon any presentation; that development takes place only as this self-activity expresses itself; that education is evolutionary rather than involutionary. Teaching is, therefore, a process of arousing, sustaining, and directing the self-activity of pupils. The more persistently and successfully this activity is aroused, the more systematically it is directed to intelligent ends, the more skillful is the teaching. Teachers do not impart knowledge, for that is impossible; they occasion knowledge. Only as the teacher succeeds through questions, directions, diagrams, and all known devices, in arousing the self-activity of the student, is he producing the conditions under which knowledge is acquired by the pupil.
The methods commonly used in college teaching are as follows:
1. Lecture method, with or without quiz sections.
2. Development method, with or without textbook.
3. Combination of lecture and development method.
4. Reference readings and the presentation of papers by students.
5. Laboratory work by students, together with lectures and quiz sections.
Teachers have long debated the relative merits of these methods or combinations of them. They fail to realize that each method is correct, depending upon the aim to be accomplished and the governing circumstances. No method has a monopoly of pedagogical wisdom; no method, used exclusively, is free from inherent weakness. A teaching method must be judged by its ability to arouse and sustain self-activity and to attain the aim set for a specific lesson. With this standard for judging a method of teaching, we must stop to sum up the relative worth of common methods of college teaching.
The lecture method has been the target for much criticism for many centuries. Socrates inveighed against its use by the sophists, and educators since have repeated the attack. The reasons are legion: (a) The lecture method tends to discourage the pupil's activity. The student feels no responsibility during the lecture; he listens leisurely, and makes notes of the instructor's contribution. The student's judgment is not called into play; he learns to take knowledge on the authority of the instructor. The sense of comfort and security experienced in a lecture hour is fatal even to aggressive and assertive minds. Sooner or later the students succumb to the inertia developed by the lecture system.
(b) A second limitation of an exclusive lecture method is its inability to make permanent impressions. Many a student, entering the lecture hall, has completely forgotten even the theme of the last lecture. Knowledge is retained only when it is obtained by the expression of self-activity. To offset this weakness notes must be taken, but these prove to be the bane of the lecture method. Some students, in their efforts to record a point just concluded, lose not only the thought of what they are trying to write but also the new thought which the instructor is now explaining; they drop both ideas from their notes and wait for the next step in the development of the lecture. This accounts for the many gaps in the notes kept by students. Some instructors, dismayed by the amount of knowledge lost by students, resort to dictation devices. Others, realizing the pedagogical weakness of such teaching, distribute mimeographed outlines of carefully prepared summaries of the lectures. Now the student is relieved of the tedium of note taking, but the temptation to let his mind wander afield is intensified. An outline, scanty of detail, but so devised as to keep the organization and sequence of subject matter clear in the minds of students, is, of course, helpful. But detailed outlines distributed among the students discourage even attentive listening.
(c) In teaching by lectures only there is no contact between student and teacher. The student does not recite; he does not reveal his type of mind, his mode of study, his grasp of subject matter. He is merely a passive recipient. To this third weakness of the lecture method we may add a fourth: (d) it tends to emphasize quantity rather than method. The student is confronted with a great mass of facts, but he does not acquire a mode of thought nor does he see the method by which a given subject is developed. (e) The lecture method, therefore, inculcates in students an attitude of mental subservience which is fatal for the development of courageous and vigorous thought. And finally (f) it must be urged that in lecture teaching the instructor is not testing the accuracy of the students' conceptions nor is he able to judge the efficacy of his own methods.
But, on the other hand, it must be admitted that with an effective lecturer, possessed of commanding personality, the lecture gives a point of view of a subject and an enthusiasm for it which other devices fail to achieve. The lecture method makes for economy of time and enables one to present his subject to his class with a succinctness absent from many textbooks. Where much must be taught in a limited time, where a comprehensive view of an extensive field must be given, when certain types of responses or mental attitudes are desired, the lecture serves well.
Experience teaches that an exclusive lecture system is not conducive to efficient work; that lectures to regular classes ought to be punctuated by questions whenever interest lags; that the occasional and even the unannounced lecture is more effective; that supplementary devices for checking up assignments and regular collateral study are of vital importance. Where regular lectures are followed by detailed analyses in quiz sections the best results are obtained when the lecturer himself is the questioner. Where quiz sections are turned over to assistants, wise procedure requires that quiz leaders attend the lectures and decide, in conference with the lecturer, the specific aims which must be achieved in the quiz work and the assigned readings which must be given to students in preparation for each quiz hour. Unless this is done, the student is frequently confused by the divergent points of view presented by lecturer, quiz master, and textbook.
The development method has much to commend it. It stimulates activity by its repeated questions. Few or no notes are taken. There is constant contact with the student. At every point the mental content of the pupils is revealed. The teacher sees the result of his teaching by the intelligence of successive responses. The pupil is being trained in systematic thought and in concentration. But it must be remembered that the development method is often costly in time because answers may be wrong or irrelevant. It may encourage wandering; a student's reply reveals ignorance of a basic principle, and the aim of the lesson is often forgotten in the eagerness to patch up this misconception. Then, too, in subject matter that is arbitrary, as in descriptive and narrative history, no development is possible. In such cases the questions are designed to test the student's knowledge of the text, and the lesson becomes a quiz rather than a development.
It is plain, therefore, that a judicious combination of the lecture and development methods will give better results than the exclusive use of either one. The analysis of the pedagogical advantages of each leads to the conclusion that the development method should predominate and that the lecture method should be used sparingly and always with some of the checking devices described.
A common method employed in advanced courses in college subjects emphasizes reference study and research. The entire course is reduced to a series of problems, each of which deals with a vital aspect of the subject. Each student is made responsible for a topic. The initial hours are devoted to an examination of the common sources of information in this specific subject, the modes of using these, the standards to be attained in writing a paper on one of the topics, and similar matters. The remainder of the term is given over to seminar work: each student reads his paper and holds himself in readiness to answer all questions his classmates may ask on his topic. The aims of such a course are obviously to develop a knowledge of sources and an ability to use intelligently the unorganized data found by the student. The results of these pseudo-seminar courses are far from what was anticipated. A thorough investigation of such a course will soon convince the teacher that the seminar method, whatever its merits in university training, must be refined and diluted before it is applied to college teaching. Let us see why.
Successful reference reading requires a knowledge of the field studied, maturity of mind, discriminating judgment in the selection of material, and ability in organization. The university student is not only maturer and more serious but has a basis of broader knowledge than most undergraduates. Without this equipment of mental powers and knowledge, the student cannot judge the merits of contending views nor harmonize seeming discrepancies. A student who has no ample foundation of economics cannot study the subject by reference reading on the problems of economics. To learn the meaning of value he would read the psychological explanations of the Austrian schools and the materialistic conceptions of the classical writers. He would then find himself in a state of confusion, owing to what seemed to him to be a superfluity of explanations of value. When one understands one point of view, an added viewpoint is a source of greater clarity and a means of deeper understanding. But when one is entirely ignorant of fundamental concepts, two points of view presented simultaneously become two sources of confusion. In the university only the student of tried worth is permitted to take a seminar course. In the upper classes in college, mediocre students are often welcomed into a seminar course in order to help float an unpromising elective.
The college seminar is usually unsuccessful because few students have ability to hold the attention of their classmates for a period of thirty minutes or more. Language limitations, lack of a knowledge of subject matter, inability to illustrate effectively, and the skeptical attitude of fellow students all militate against successful teaching by a member of the class. Students presenting papers often select unimportant details or give too many details. The rest of the class listen languidly, take occasional notes, and ask a few perfunctory questions to help bring the session to a close. A successful hour is rare. The student who prepared the topic of the day undoubtedly is benefited, but those who listen acquire little knowledge and less power. The course ends without a comprehensive view of the entire subject, without that knowledge which comes from the teacher's leadership and instruction. This type of reference reading and research has value when used as an occasional ten or fifteen minute exercise to supplement certain aspects of class work. But as a steady diet in a college course, the seminar usually leaves much to be desired.
The laboratory method is growing in favor today in college teaching. It is employed in the social sciences, in sociology, in economics, in psychology, in education, as well as in the physical and the biological sciences. Where it is followed the aim is clearly twofold; viz., to teach the method by which the specific subject is growing and to develop in the students mental power and a scientific attitude towards knowledge.
Let us illustrate these two aims of the laboratory method. A laboratory course in chemistry or biology or sociology may be designed to teach the student the use of apparatus and equipment necessary for work in a respective field; the method of attacking a problem; a standard for distinguishing significant from immaterial data; methods of gathering facts; the modes of keeping scientific records,—in a word, the essence of the experience of successive generations of investigators and contributors. But no successful laboratory results can be obtained without a proper mental attitude. The student must learn how to prevent his mental prepossessions or his desires from coloring his observations; to allow for controls and variables; to give most exacting care to every detail that may influence his result; to regard every conclusion as a tentative hypothesis subject to verification or modification in the light of further test. Unless the student acquires a knowledge of the method of science and has achieved these necessary modes of thought, his laboratory course has failed to make its most significant contribution.
In courses where the aim is to teach socially necessary information or to give a comprehensive view of the scope of a specific subject, it is obvious that the laboratory method will lead far afield. It is for this reason that introductory courses given in recitations, with demonstrations by instructors, and occasional lecture and laboratory hours, are more liberalizing in their influence upon the beginners than courses that are primarily laboratory in character.
Most laboratory courses would enhance their usefulness by observing a few primary pedagogical maxims. The first of these counsels that we establish most clearly the distinctive aim of the course. The instructor must be sure that he has no quantitative aim to attain but is occupied rather with the problems of teaching the method of his specialty. Second, an earnest effort must be made to acquaint the students with the general aim of the entire course as well as with the specific aim of each laboratory exercise. The students must be made to realize that they are not discovering new principles but that by rediscovering old knowledge or testing the validity of well-established truths they are developing not only the technique of investigational work, but also a set of useful mental habits. Much in laboratory work seems needless to the student who does not perceive the goal which every task strives to attain.
A third requisite for successful laboratory work requires so careful a gradation that every type of problem peculiar to a subject is made to arise in the succession of exercises. It is wise at times to set a trap for students so that they may learn through the consequences of error. For this reason students may be permitted to leap to a conclusion, to generalize from insufficient data, to neglect controls, to overlook disturbing factors, etc. An improperly planned and poorly graded laboratory course repeats exercises that involve the same problems and omits situations that give training in attacking and solving new problems.
Effective laboratory courses afford opportunity to students to repeat those exercises in which they failed badly. If each exercise in the course is designed to make a specific contribution to the development of the student, it is obvious that merely marking the student zero for a badly executed experiment is not meeting the situation. He must in addition be given the opportunity to repeat the experiment in order to derive the necessary variety of experiences from his laboratory training. And, finally, the character of the test that concludes a laboratory course must be considered. The test must be governed by the same underlying aims that determine the entire course. It must seek to reveal, not the mastery of facts, but growth in power. It must measure what the student can do rather than what he knows. A properly organized test serves to reinforce in the minds of students the aims of the entire course.
An analysis of effective teaching is necessarily incomplete that does not give due consideration to the only human factor in the teaching process—the teacher. We have too long repeated the old adages: "he who knows can teach"; "a teacher is born, not made"; "experience is the teacher of teachers." These dicta are all tried and true, but they have the failings common to platitudes. It often happens that those who know but lack in imagination and sympathy are by that very knowing rendered unfit to teach. "Knowing" so well, they cannot see the difficulties that beset the learner's path, and they have little patience with the student's slow and measured steps in the very beginnings of their specialty. It is true that some are born teachers, but our educational institutions could not be maintained if classes were turned over only to those to whom nature had given lavishly of pedagogical power. Experience teaches even teachers, but the price paid must be computed in terms of the welfare of the student. Teaching is one of the arts in which the artist works only with living material; yet college authorities still make no demand of professional training and apprenticeship as prerequisites for admission to the fraternity of teaching artists.
Ineffective college teaching will not improve until professional teaching standards are set up by respected institutions. The college teacher must be possessed of ample scholarship of a general nature. He must have expertness in his specialty, to give him a knowledge of his field, its problems and its methods. He must be a constant student, so that his scholarship in his specialty will win recognition and respect. But part of his preparation must be given over to professional training for teaching. Without this, the prospective teacher may not know until it is too late that his deficiencies of personality unfit him for teaching. With it, he shortens his term of novitiate and acquires his experience under expert guidance. The plan of college-teacher training, given by Dr. Mezes in Chapter II, so complete in scope, so thoroughly sound and progressive in character, is here suggested as a type of professional preparation now sorely needed.
The usual test of teacher and student is still the traditional examination, with its many questions and sub-questions. We still measure the results of instruction by fathoming the fund of information our students carry away. But these traditional examinations test for what is temporary and accidental. Facts known today are forgotten tomorrow. The professor himself often comes to class armed with notes, but he persists in setting up, as a test of the growth of his students, their retentivity of the facts he gave from these very notes. In the final analysis, these examinations are not tests. The writer does not urge the abolition of examinations, but argues rather for a reorganized examination that embodies new standards. A real examination must test for what is permanent and vital; it must measure the degree to which students approximate the aims that were set up to govern the entire course; it must gauge the mental habits, the growth in power, rather than facts. Part of an examination in mathematics should test students' ability to attack new problems, to plan a line of work, to think mathematically, to avoid typical fallacies of thought. For this part of the test, books may be opened and references consulted. In literature we may question on text not discussed in class to ascertain the students' power of appreciation or of literary criticism. So, too, in examinations in social sciences, physical sciences, foreign languages, and biological sciences, the examination must consist, in great measure, of questions which test the acquisition of the habits of thought, of work, of laboratory procedure—in a word, the permanent contribution of any study. This part of an examination should be differentiated from the more mechanical and memory questions which seek to reveal the student's mastery of those facts of a subject which may be regarded as socially necessary. Reduce the socially necessary data of any subject to an absolute minimum and frame questions on it demanding no such slovenly standard—sixty per cent—as now prevails in college examinations. If the facts called for on an examination are really the most vital in the subject, the passing grade should be very high. If the questions seek to elicit insignificant or minor information, any passing mark is too high. It is obvious, therefore, that a student should receive two marks in most subjects,—one that rates power and another that rates mere acquisition of facts. The passing grade in the one would necessarily be lower than in the other. An examination is justified only when it is so devised that it reveals not only the students' stock of socially useful knowledge but also their growth in mental power.
Paul Klapper
College of the City of New York
| The Sciences | |
| CHAPTER | |
| IV | The Teaching of Biology T. W. Galloway |
| V | The Teaching of Chemistry Louis Kahlenberg |
| VI | The Teaching of Physics Harvey B. Lemon |
| VII | The Teaching of Geology T. C. Chamberlin |
| VIII | The Teaching of Mathematics G. A. Miller |
| IX | Physical Education in the College Thomas A. Storey |
The life sciences, broadly conceived, are basal to all departments of knowledge; and the study of biology illumines every field of human interest. To the believer in evolution the human body, brain, senses, intellect, sensations, impulses, habits, ideas, knowledges, ideals, standards, attractions, sympathies, combinations, organizations, institutions, and all other powers and possessions of every kind and degree are merely crowning phenomena of life itself. The languages, history, science, economic systems, philosophies, and literatures of mankind are only special manifestations and expressions of life and a part, therefore, of the studies by which we as living beings are trying to appraise and appreciate the meaning of life and of the universe of which life is the most significant product. Life is not merely the most notable product of our universe; it is the most persuasive key for solving the riddle of the universe, and is the only universe product which aspires to interpret the processes by which it has reached its own present level.
All knowledge, then, is biological in the very vital sense that the living organism is the only knowing thing. The knowing process is a life process. Even when knowledge pertains to non-living objects, therefore, it is one-half biological; our most worth-while knowledge—that of ourselves and other organisms—is wholly so. Because all our knowledge is colored by the life process, of which the knowing process is derivative, the study of life underlies every science and its applications, every art and its practice, every philosophy and its interpretations. Biology must be taught in sympathy with the whole joint enterprise of living and of learning.
The most outstanding phenomenon of life is the adaptation of living things to the real and significant conditions of their existence. Furthermore, as these conditions are not static, particularly in the case of humans, organisms must not merely be adapted, but must continue thereafter to be adaptable. Now learning is only a special case under living, and education a special case under life. Its purposes are the purposes of life. It is an artificial and rapid recapitulation for the individual, in method and results, of past life itself. The purpose of education is "adaptation,—with the retention of adaptability." It is to bring the individual into attunement, through his own responses and growth, with all the real factors, external and internal, in his life,—material, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual,—and at the same time leave him plastic.
Adaptation comes through the habit-forming experiences of stimulus and response. The very process of adaptation, therefore, tends toward fixity and to destroy adaptability. It is thus the task of education, as it is of life, to replace the native, inexperienced and physiological plasticity of youth with some product of experience which shall be able to revise habits in the interest of new situations. The adaptability of the experienced person must be psychical and acquired. It must be in the realm of appreciation, attitude, choice, self-direction—a realm superior to habit.
In this human task of securing adaptation and retaining adaptiveness the life sciences have high rank. In addition to furnishing the very conception itself that we have been trying to phrase, they give illustrations of all the historic occasions, kinds, and modes of adaptation; in lacking the exactness of the mathematical and physical sciences they furnish precisely the degree of uncertainty and openness of opportunity and of mental state which the act of living itself demands. In other words the science of life is, if properly presented, the most normal possible introduction to the very practical art of living. Because of the parallel meaning of education and life in securing progressive adaptation to the essential influential forces of the universe, an appreciative study of biology introduces directly to the purposes and methods of human education.
While students differ in the details of their purposes in life, all must learn to make the broad adjustments to the physical conditions of life; to the problems of food and nutrition; to other organisms, helpful and hurtful; to the internal impulses, tendencies, and appetites; to the various necessary human contacts and relations; to the great body of knowledge important to life, which human beings have got together; to the prevailing philosophical interpretations of the universe and of life; and to the pragmatic organizations, conventions, and controls which human society has instituted. In addition to these, some students of biology are going into various careers, each demanding special adjustments which biology may aid notably. Such are medicine and its related specialties, professional agricultural courses, and biological research of all kinds.
An extended examination of college catalogs shows some consciousness of these facts on the part of teachers of biology. The following needs are formally recognized in the prospectuses: (1) The disciplinary and cultural needs of the general student; (2) the needs of those preparing for medicine or other professional courses; and (3) the needs of the people proposing to specialize in botany and zoölogy. These aims are usually mentioned in the order given here; but an examination of the character of the courses often reveals the fact that the actual organization of the department is determined by an exact reversal of this order,—that most of the attention is given, even in the beginning courses, to the task of preparing students to take advanced work in the subject. The theory of the departments is usually better than their practice.
In what follows these are the underlying assumptions,—which seem without need of argument: (1) The general human needs should have the first place in organizing the courses in biology; (2) the introductory courses should not be constructed primarily as the first round in the ladder of biological or professional specialization, but for the general purposes of human life; (3) the preparation needed by teachers of biology for secondary schools is more nearly like that needful for the general student than that suited to the specialist in the subject; and (4) the later courses may more and more be concerned with the special ends of professional and vocational preparation.
What are the general adaptive contributions of biology to human nature? What are the results in the individual which biology should aim to bring to every student? There are four classes of personal possessions, important in human adaptation, to which biology ministers in a conspicuous way: information and knowledge; ability and skills; habits; and attitudes, appreciations, and ideals. These four universal aims of education are doubtless closely related and actually inseparable, but it is worth while to consider them apart for the sake of clearness.
(1) Some knowledge of the processes by which individual plants and animals grow and differentiate, through nutrition and activity; of the process of development common to all organisms; and the bearing of these facts on human life, health, and conduct.
(2) An outline knowledge of reproduction in plants and animals; the origin, nature, meaning, and results of sex; the contribution of sex to human life, to social organization and ideals, and its importance in determining behavior and controls.
(3) A good knowledge of the external forces most important in influencing life; of the nature of the influence; of the various ways in which organisms respond and become adjusted individually and racially to these conditions. A sense of the necessity of adaptation; of the working of the laws of cause and effect among living things, as everywhere else; of the fact that nature's laws cannot be safely ignored by man any more than by the lower organisms; of the relation between animal behavior and human behavior.
(4) Equally a true conception of the known facts about the internal tendencies in organisms including man, which we call hereditary. The principles underlying plant, animal, and human breeding. Any progress in behavior, in legislation, or in public opinion in the field of eugenics, negative or positive, must come from the spread of such knowledge.
(5) A knowledge of the numerous ways in which plants and animals contribute to or interfere with human welfare. This includes use for food, clothing, and labor saving; their destruction of other plants or animals useful or hurtful to us; their work in producing, spreading, or aiding in the cure of disease; their æsthetic service and inspiration; the aid they give us in learning of our own nature through the experiments we conduct upon them; and many miscellaneous services.
(6) A conception of the evolutionary series of plants and animals, and of man's place in the series; a reassurance that man's high place as an intellectual and emotional being is in no way put in peril by his being a part of the series. Some clear knowledge of the general manner of the development of the plant and animal kingdoms to their present complexity should be gained. The student should have some acquaintance with the great generalizations that have meant so much to the science and to all human thinking, should understand how they were reached and the main classes of facts on which they are based.
(7) The general student should be required to have such knowledge of structure and classification as is needed to give foundation and body to the evolutionary conceptions of plants and animals, and to the various processes and powers mentioned above—and only so much.
(8) Some knowledge of the development of the science itself; of its relation to the other sciences; of the men who have most contributed to it, and their contributions; of the manner of making these discoveries, and of the bearing of the more important of these discoveries upon human learning, progress, and well-being.
(9) Something of the parallelism between animal psychology, behavior, habits, instincts, and learning, and those of man,—in both the individual and the social realm.
(10) An elementary understanding of plant and animal and human distribution over the earth, and of the factors that have brought it about.
Skill or ability may be developed in respect to the following activities: seeking and securing information, recording it, interpreting its significance, reaching general conclusions about it, modifying one's conduct under the guidance of these conclusions, and, finally, of appraising the soundness of this conduct in the light of the results of it. All of these are of basic importance in the human task of making conscious adjustments in actual life; and the ability to get facts and to use them is more valuable than to possess the knowledge of facts. Other sciences develop some of these forms of skill better than biology does; nevertheless, we shall find that biology furnishes a remarkably balanced opportunity to develop skills of the various kinds. It presents a great range and variety of opportunity to develop accuracy and skill in raising questions; in observation and the use of precise descriptive terms in recording results of observation; in experimentation; in comparison and classification. It is peculiarly rich in opportunities to gain skill in discriminating between important and unimportant data,—one of the most vital of all the steps in the process of sound reasoning. In practice, a datum may at first sight seem trivial, when in reality it is very significant. Skill in estimating values comes only with experience in estimating values, and in applying these estimates in practice, and in observing and correcting the results of practice.
Finally, skill in adjusting behavior to knowledge is one of the most necessary abilities and most difficult to attain. The study of animal behavior experimentally is at the foundation of much that we know of human psychology and the grounds of human behavior. Even in an elementary class it is quite possible so to study animal responses and the results of response as to give guidance and facility to the individual in interpreting the efficiency of his own responses, and in adding to his own controls. As has been said, practice of some kind is necessary to determine whether our estimate of values is good. Even vicarious experience has educative value.
Habits are of course the normal outcome of repeated action. Indeed, skills are in a sense habits from another point of view. Skill, however, looks rather toward the output; habit, toward the mode of functioning by the person by whom the result is attained. We may then develop habits in respect to all the processes and activities mentioned above under the term "skills." The teacher of biology should have definitely in purpose the securing for the student of habits of inquiry, of diligence, of concentration, of accuracy of observation, of seeking and weighing evidence, of detecting the essentials in a mass of facts, of refusing to rest satisfied until a conclusion, the most tenable in the light of all known data, is reached, and of reëxamining conclusions whenever new evidence is offered.
Of course it is impossible to use biology to get habits of right reasoning in students unless we really allow them to reason. If we insist that their work is merely to observe, record, and hold in memory,—as so many of us do in laboratory work,—they may form habits of doing these things, but not necessarily any more than this. Indeed, they may definitely form the habit of doing only these things, failing to use the results in forming for themselves any of the larger conclusions about organisms. Seeing and knowing—without the ability and habit of thinking—is not an uncommon or surprising result of our conventional laboratory work. There is only one way to get the habit of right "following through" in reasoning; this is, always to do the thing. When data are observed or are furnished it is a pedagogical sin on the part of the teacher to allow the student to stop at that point; and equally so to deduce the conclusion for the student, or to allow the writer of the textbook to do so, or at any time to induce the student to accept from another a conclusion which he himself might reach from the data. We have depended too much on our science as a mere observational science,—when as a matter of fact its chief glory is really its opportunity and its incentives to coherent thinking and careful testing of conclusions.
It is inexact enough, if we are entirely honest, to force us to hold our conclusions with an open mind ready to admit new evidence. It is entirely the fault of the teacher if the pupil gets a dogmatic, too-sure habit of mind as the result of his biological studies. And yet, as has been said, it is exact enough to enable us to reach just the same sort of approximations to truth which are possible in our own lives. The study of biology presents a superb opportunity to prepare for living by forming the habits of mind and of life that facilitate right choices in the presence of highly debatable situations. In this it much surpasses the more "exact" sciences. We may conclude, then, by positing the belief that the most important mental habit which human beings can form is that of using and applying consciously the scientific method as outlined above, not merely to biology alone, but to all the issues of personal life as well.