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.

Limitations of seminar method in undergraduate teaching

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.

Value of laboratory method

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.

Cautions in the use of the laboratory method

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.

The college teacher not the university professor

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.

Testing the results of instruction

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



PART TWO

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



IV

THE TEACHING OF BIOLOGY

BIOLOGY AND EDUCATION

Biology the science basal to all knowing

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.

Adaptation without losing adaptability the goal of life and of education

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.

CHIEF AIMS OF BIOLOGY AS A COLLEGE SUBJECT

Why study biology in college?

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 zoology. 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.

GENERAL AIMS OF BIOLOGY IN EDUCATION

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.

A. TYPES OF BIOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE USEFUL IN THE ADAPTATION OF HUMAN BEINGS TO THE MOST IMPORTANT CONDITIONS OF THEIR LIFE

(1) Study of biology furnishes knowledge of adaptive value

(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 aesthetic 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.

B. FORMS OF SKILL WHICH WORK IN BIOLOGY SHOULD BRING TO EVERY STUDENT

(2) Biological study gives desirable skills

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.

C. HABITS WHICH MAY BE STRENGTHENED BY THE WORK IN BIOLOGY

(3) Biology may supply adaptive habits

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 reexamining 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.

D. APPRECIATIONS, ATTITUDES, AND IDEALS AS AIDED BY BIOLOGY

(4) Attitudes of life perfected by study of the life sciences

This group of objectives is a bit less tangible, as some think, than those that have been mentioned; but in my own opinion they are as important and as educable for the good of the youth by means of biology as are knowledge, skill, and habit. In a sense these states of mind arise as by-products of the getting of information, skills, and habits; in turn they heighten their value. We have spoken above of the need of skill and habit in making use of the various steps in the scientific method in reaching conclusions in life. These are essential, but skill and habit alone are not enough to meet the necessities in actual life.

In the first place the habit of using the scientific method in the scientific laboratory does not in itself give assurance that the person will apply this method in getting at the truth in problems in his own personal life; and yet this is the essential object of all this scientific training. In order to get the individual to carry over this method,—especially where feelings and prejudices are involved,—we must inculcate in him the scientific ideal and the scientific attitude until they become general in their influence. To do this he ought to be induced as a regular part of his early courses in biology to practice the scientific method upon certain practical daily decisions exactly with the same rigor that is used in the biological laboratory. The custom of using this method in animal study should be transformed into an attitude of dependence upon it as the only sound method of solving one's life choices. Only by carrying the method consciously into our life's problems, as a part of the exercise in the course in biology, can we break up the disposition to regard the method as good merely in the biological laboratory. We must generate, by practice and precept, the ideal of making universal our dependence upon our best instrument of determining truth. A personal habit in the laboratory must become a general ideal for life, if we hope to substitute the scientific method for prejudice in human living. There is no department of learning so well capable of doing this thing as biology.

In the second place, the scientific method standing alone, because of its very excellence as a method, is liable to produce a kind of over-sure dogmatism about conclusions, unless it be accompanied by the scientific attitude or spirit of open-mindedness. The scientific spirit does not necessarily flow from the scientific method at all, unless the teacher is careful in his use of it in teaching. We make a mistake if, in our just enthusiasm to impress the scientific method upon the student, we fail to teach that it can give, at best, only an approximation to truth. The scientific attitude which holds even our best-supported conclusions subject to revision by new evidence is the normal corrective of the possible dogmatism that comes from over-confidence in the scientific method as our best means of discovering truth.

The student at the end of the first year of biology ought to have more appreciation and enjoyment of plants and animals and their life than at the beginning,—and increased appreciation of his own relation to other animals; some attitude of dependence upon the scientific method of procedure not merely in biology but in his own life; a desire, however modest, for investigating things for himself; and an ideal of open-minded, enthusiastic willingness to subject his own conclusions to renewed testing at all times. All these gains should be reinforced by later courses.

SPECIAL AIMS OF BIOLOGY IN EDUCATION

(5) Biology a valuable tool for certain technical pursuits

So far as I can see, the preparation of students for medicine, for biological research, or for any advanced application of biology calls only for the following,—in addition to the further intensification of the emphasis suggested above:

(a) An increased recognition of the subject matter in organizing the course. In the early courses the subject ought to be subordinated to the personal elements. If one is to relate himself to the science in a professional way, the logic of the science comes to be the dominant objective.

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

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

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

ORGANIZATION OF THE COURSE IN BIOLOGY

Biology courses not to be standardized rigidly

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

But they should follow a general principle:

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

First Group

(1) The first group of courses should introduce to life rather than to later biological courses

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

Course—Biology 1. General Biology

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

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

Course—Biology 2. History of Biology

This course, dealing with the relation of the development of biology to human interests and problems, may be given separately, or as a part of Course 1,—which should otherwise be prerequisite to it. This may be one of the most humanizing of all the possible courses in biology.

Second Group

(2) A second group should be technical and introductory to professional uses

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

Course—Botany 1: General and Comparative Botany, and the Evolution of Plants.

Course—Botany 2: Physiology and Ecology of Plants.

Course—Botany 3: Plant Cytology, Histology, and Embryology.

Course—Zoology 1: General and Comparative Zoology.

Course—Zoology 2: Animal, including Human, Physiology.

Course—Zoology 3: Microtechnic, Histology, Histogenesis, Embryogeny.

Course—Zoology 4: Animal Ecology.

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

Third Group

(3) A third group of special, but cultural, courses

This group contains certain of the more elementary applications of biology to human welfare. While having practical value in somewhat specialized vocations, the courses in this group are not proposed as professional or technical. They are definitely cultural. Every college might well give one or more of them, in accordance with local conditions. They ought to be eligible without the courses of the second group. The order is not significant.

Biology 3: Economic Entomology; Biology 4: Bird Course; Biology 5: Tree Course; Biology 6: Bacteriology and Fermentation; Biology 7: Biology of Sex; Heredity and Eugenics; Biology 8: Biology and Education; Biology 9: Evolution and Theoretical Problems.

PLACE OF BIOLOGY IN THE COLLEGE CURRICULUM

The first course ought to be given in such a way that it might fittingly be required of all freshmen

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

Biology 1 should be prerequisite for botany 1 and zoology 1, and for the special biology courses in group three.

Botany 1 and zoology 1 should be made prerequisite for the higher courses in their respective fields; but aside from this almost any sequence would be allowable.

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

METHODS OF TEACHING AS CONDITIONED BY THE AIMS OUTLINED ABOVE

Acceptance of biology retarded by poor pedagogy

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

Prostitution of the laboratory

Our method has thus crystallized about the laboratory as the one essential thing; but worse, we have used the very shortcomings of the laboratory as an excuse for extending its sway. The laboratory method is the method of research in biology. It is our only way to discover unknown facts. Is it, therefore, the best way to rediscover facts? This does not necessarily follow, though we have assumed it. Self-discovered facts are no better nor more true than communicated facts, and it takes more time to get them. The laboratory is the slowest possible way of getting facts. We have tried to correct this quantitative difficulty by extending the laboratory time, by speeding up, by confining ourselves to static types of facts like those of structure, and by using detailed laboratory guides for matter and method, all of which tends to make the laboratory exercise one of routine and the mere observation and recording of facts or a verification of the statements in manuals. The correction of these well-known limitations of the laboratory must come, in my opinion, by a frank recognition of, and breaking away from, certain of our misapprehensions about the function of the laboratory. Some of these are:

Real purpose and possibility of laboratory work

1. That the chief facts of a science should be rediscovered by the student in the laboratory. This is not true. Life is too short. The great mass of the student's facts must come from the instructor and from books. The laboratory has as its function in respect to facts, some very vital things: as, making clear certain classes of facts which the student cannot visualize without concrete demonstration; giving vividness to facts in general; gaining of enough facts at first hand to enable him to hold in solution the great mass of facts which he must take second hand; to give him skill and accuracy in observation and in recording discoveries; to give appreciation of the way in which all the second-hand facts have been reached; to give taste and enthusiasm for asking questions and confidence and persistence in finding answers for them. Anything more than this is waste of time. These results are not gained by mere quantity of work, but only through constant and intelligent guidance of the student's attitude in the process of dealing with facts.

2. A feeling that the laboratory or scientific method consists primarily of observation of facts and their record. In reality these are three great steps instead of one in this method, which the student of biology should master: (1) the getting of facts, one device for doing which is observation; (2) the appraisal and discrimination of these facts to find which are important; and (3) the drawing of the conclusions which these facts seem to warrant. There are two practical corollaries of this truth. One is that the laboratory should be so administered that the pupil shall appreciate the full scope of the scientific method, its tremendous historic value to the race, and the necessity of using all the steps of it faithfully in all future progress as well as in the sound solution of our individual problems and the guidance of conduct. The second is that we may make errors in our scientific conclusions and in life conclusions, through failure to discriminate among our facts, quite as fatally as through lack of facts. Indeed, my personal conviction is that more failures are due to lack of discrimination than to lack of observation. The power to weigh evidence is at least as important as the power to collect it.

3. A disposition to deny the student the right to reach conclusions in the laboratory,—or, as we flamboyantly say, to "generalize." Now in reality the only earthly value of facts is to get truth,—that is, conclusions or generalizations. To deny this privilege is taxation without representation in respect to personality. The purpose of the laboratory is to enable students to think, to think accurately and with purpose, to reach their own conclusions. The getting of facts by observation is only a minor detail. In reality, the data the student can get from books are much more reliable than his own observations are likely to be. Our laboratory training should add gradually to the accuracy of his observations, but particularly it should enable him to use his own and other persons' facts conjointly, and with proper discrimination, in reaching conclusions. To do other than this tends to abort the reasoning attitude and power, and teaches the pupil to stand passive in the presence of facts and to divorce facts and conclusions. The fear is, of course, that the students will get wrong conclusions and acquire the habit of jumping prematurely to generalizations. But this situation, while critical, is the very glory of the method. What we want to do is to ask them continually,—wherever possible,—where their facts seem to lead them. Their conclusions are liable to be quite wrong, to be sure. But our province as teachers is to see that the facts ignorance of which made this conclusion wrong are brought to their attention,—and it is not absolutely material whether they discover these facts themselves or some one else does. What we want to compass is practice in reaching conclusions, and the recognition of the necessity of getting and discriminating facts in doing so, together with a realization that there are probably many other facts which we have not discovered that would modify our conclusions. This keeps the mind open. In other words, the student may thus be brought to realize the meaning of the "working hypothesis" and the method of approximation to truth. It makes no difference if one "jumps to a conclusion," if he jumps in the light of all his known facts and holds his conclusion tentatively. It is much better to reach wrong conclusions through inadequate facts than to have the mind come to a standstill in the presence of facts. Instead of being a threat, reaching a wrong conclusion gives us the opportunity to train students in holding their conclusions open-mindedly and subject to revision through new facts. Reaching wrong or partial conclusions and correcting them may be made even more educative than reaching right ones at the outset. This would not be true if the conclusion were being sought for the sake of the science. But it is being sought solely for the sake of the student. The distinction is important. The inability to make it is one of the reasons why research men so often fail as teachers.

All through life the student will be forced to draw conclusions from two types of facts,—both of which will be incomplete: those he himself has observed and those which came to him from other observers. While he must always feel free to try out any and all facts for himself, it is quite as important in practice that he be able to weigh other persons' facts discriminatingly. We teach in the laboratory that the pupil should not take his facts second hand, though we rather insist that he do so with his conclusions. In reality it is often much better to take our facts second hand; the stultifying thing is to take our conclusions so.

A normal complete mental reaction for every laboratory exercise

4. The dependence upon outlines and manuals. This is one of the most deadening devices that we have instituted to economize gray matter and increase the quantity of laboratory records at the expense of real initiative and thinking. It is easy for the reader to analyze for himself the mental reaction, or lack of it, of the student in following the usual detailed laboratory outline. Every laboratory exercise should be an educative situation calling for a complete mental reaction from the pupil. In the first place, no exercise should be used which is not really vital and educative. This assured, the full mental reaction of the student should be about as follows:

(1) The cursory survey of the situation.

(2) The raising by the student of such questions as seem to him interesting or worthy of solution. (Here, of course, the teacher can by skillful questioning lead the class to raise all necessary problems, and increase the student's willingness to attack them.)

(3) The determination through class conference of the order and method of attacking the problems, and the reasons therefor.

(4) The accumulation and record of discovered facts (sharply eliminating all inferences).

(5) The arrangement (classification) and appraisal (discrimination) of the discovered facts.

(6) Conclusions or inferences from the facts. (These should be very sharply and critically examined by teacher and class, to see to what extent they are really valid and supported by the facts.)

(7) Retesting of conclusions by new facts submitted by class, by teacher, or from books, with an effort to diminish prejudice as a factor in conclusions, and to increase the willingness to approach our own conclusions with an open mind.

When laboratory outlines are used at all they should consist merely of directions, and suggestions, and stimulating questions which will start the pupils on the main quest,—the raising and solving of their own problems.

SOME MOOT PROBLEMS[2]

Ascending or descending order?

1. Shall we begin with the simple, little-known, lower forms and follow the ascending order, which is analogous at least to the evolutionary order? Or shall we begin with the more complex but better-known forms and go downward? It seems to the writer that the former method has the advantage in actual interest; in its suggestiveness of evolution, which is the most important single impression the student will get from his course; and in the mental satisfactions that come to pupil and teacher alike from the sense of progress. However, our material is so rich, so interesting, and so plastic that it makes little difference where we begin if only we have a clear idea of what we want to accomplish.

Morphology versus other interests

2. What proportion of time should be given to morphology in relation to other interests? For several reasons morphology has been overemphasized. It lends itself to the older conception of the laboratory as a place to observe and record facts. It offers little temptation to reach conclusions. It calls for little use of gray matter. This makes it an easy laboratory enterprise. It is what the grade teachers call "busy" work, and can be multiplied indefinitely. It can be made to smack of exactness and thoroughness.

Furthermore, morphology is in reality a basal consideration. It is a legitimate part of an introductory course,—but never for its own sake nor to prepare for higher courses. But morphology is, however, only the starting point for the higher mental processes by which different forms of organisms are compared, for the correlating of structure with activity, for appreciation of adaptations of structure both to function and to environmental influence. It thus serves as a foundation upon which to build conclusions about really vital matters. Experience teaches that sensitiveness, behavior, and other activities and powers and processes interest young people more than structure. The student's views are essentially sound at this point.

The introductory course should, therefore, be a cycle in which the student passes quite freely back and forth between form, powers, activities, conditions of life, and the conclusions as to the meanings of these. It is important only that he shall know with which consideration he is from time to time engaged.

Few types or many?

3. Shall a few forms be studied thoroughly, or many forms be studied more superficially? There is something of value in each of these practices. It is possible to over-emphasize the idea of thoroughness in the introductory courses. Thoroughness is purely a relative condition anyway, since we cannot really master any type. It seems poor pedagogy, in an elementary class particularly, to emphasize small and difficult forms or organs because they demand more painstaking and skill on the part of the student. My own practice in the elementary course is to have a very few specially favorable forms studied with a good deal of care, and a much larger number studied partially, emphasizing those points which they illustrate very effectively.

Distribution of time

4. What proportion of time should be given to the various methods of work? Manifestly the answer to this question depends upon the local equipment and upon the character of the course itself. The suggestion here relates primarily to the general or introductory courses. It seems to me that a sound division of time would be: two or three hours per week of class exercises (lectures, recitations, reports, quiz, etc.) demanding not less than four hours of preparation in text and library work; and four to six hours a week of "practical" work with organisms, about two hours of which should take the form of studies in the field wherever this is possible.

Weakness of the research man as a teacher for the beginning course

5. Is the "research" man the best teacher for the introductory courses? In spite of a good deal of prejudgment on the part of college and university administrators and of the research biologists themselves. I am convinced he is not. While there are notable exceptions, my own observation is that the investigator, whether the head professor or the "teaching fellow," usually does not have the mental attitude that makes a successful teacher, at least of elementary classes,—and for these reasons: he begrudges the time spent in teaching elementary classes, presents the subject as primarily preparatory to upper courses, subordinates the human elements to the scientific elements, and actually exploits the class in the interest of research. The real teacher's question about an entering class is this: "How can I best use the materials of our science to make real men and women out of these people?" The question of the professional investigator is likely to be: "How many of these people are fit to become investigators, and how can I most surely find them and interest them in the science?" This is a perfectly fine and legitimate question; but it is not an appropriate one until the first one has been answered. It has been assumed that the answers to the two questions are identical. This is one of the most vicious assumptions in higher education today, in my opinion. Furthermore, the investigator with his interests centering at the margins of the unknown cannot use the scientific method as a teacher, whose interest must center in the pupil. The points of view are not merely not identical; they are incompatible.

Necessity of differentiation and recognition of the two functions

Experience indicates the wisdom of having all beginning courses in biology in colleges and universities given by teachers and not by investigators, mature or immature. All people who propose to teach biology in the high schools should have their early courses given from this human point of view, that they may be the better able to come back to it after their graduate work, in their efforts to organize courses for pupils the greater part of whom will never have any but a life interest in the subject. The problem of presenting the advanced and special courses is relatively an easy one. The investigator is the best possible teacher for advanced students in his own special field if he is endowed with any common sense at all.

TESTS OF EFFECTIVENESS OF TEACHING

As yet we are notably lacking in regard to the measurement of progress as the result of our teaching. Our usual tests—examination, recitation, quiz, reports, laboratory notebooks—evaluate in a measure work done, knowledge or general grasp acquired, and accuracy developed. We need, however, measurements of skill, of habits, and of the still more intangible attitudes and appreciations. These may be gained in part by furnishing really educative situations and observing the time and character of the student's reaction. Every true teacher is in reality an experimental psychologist, and must apply directly the methods of the psychologist.

More vital tests of results of teaching must be found

The laboratory and field furnish opportunity for this sort of testing. The student may be confronted with an unfamiliar organism or situation and be given a limited time in which to obtain and record his results. He may be asked to state and enumerate the problems that are suggested by the situation; outline a method of solving them; discover as large a body of facts as possible; arrange them in an order that seems to him logical, with his reasons; and to make whatever inferences seem to him sound in the light of facts,—supporting his conclusions at every point. The ability to make such a total mental reaction promptly and comprehendingly is the best test of any teaching whatsoever. The important thing is that we shall not ourselves lose sight of the essential parts of it in our enthusiasm for one portion of it.

In judging attitude and appreciation I think it is possible for discriminating teachers to obtain the testimony of the pupil himself in appraisal of his own progress and attitude. This needs to be done indirectly, to be sure. The student's self-judgment may not be accurate; but it is not at all impossible to secure a disposition in students to measure and estimate their own progress in these various things with some accuracy and fairness of mind. Besides its incidental value as a test, I know of no realm of biological observation, discrimination, and conclusion more likely to prove profitable to the student than this effort to estimate, without prejudice, his own growth.

THE LITERATURE OF THE SUBJECT

Scarcity of authoritative pedagogical literature in biology

For various reasons very little attention has been given to the pedagogy of college biology by those in the best position to throw light upon this vital problem. More information as to the attitude of teachers of the subject is to be derived from college and university catalogs than elsewhere,—howbeit of a somewhat stereotyped and standardized kind. Much more has been written relative to the teaching of biology in the secondary schools. In my opinion the most effective teaching of biology in America today is being done in the best high schools by teachers who have been forced to acquire a pedagogical background that would enable them to reconstruct completely their presentation of the subject. Most of these people obtained very little help in this task from their college courses in biology. For these reasons every college teacher will greatly profit by studying what has been written for the secondary teachers. School Science and Mathematics (Chicago) is the best source for current views in this field. Its files will show no little of the best thought and investigation that have been devoted to the principles underlying instruction in biology. Lloyd and Bigelow, in The Teaching of Biology (Longmans, Green & Co.), have treated the problems of secondary biology at length. Ganong's Teaching Botanist (The Macmillan Company) has high value.

The authors of textbooks of biology, botany, and zoology issued during the last ten years have ventured to develop, in their prefaces, appendices, and elsewhere, their pedagogical points of view. The writer has personal knowledge that teaching suggestions are still resented by some college teachers of zoology. Illustrations of the tendency to incorporate pedagogical material in textbooks on biological subjects can be found in

DODGE, C. W. Practical Biology. Harper and Brothers, 1894.

GAGER, C. S. Fundamentals of Botany. P. Blakiston's Son & Co., 1916.

GALLOWAY, T. W. Textbook of Zoology. P. Blakiston's Son & Co., 1915.

KINGSLEY, J. S. Textbook of Vertebrate Zoology. H. Holt & Co.

PETRUNKEVITCH, A. Morphology of Invertebrate Types. The Macmillan Company, 1916.

T. W. GALLOWAY Beloit College

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CRAMER, F. Logical Method in Biology. Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 44, page 372. 1894.

FARLOW, W. G. Biological Teaching in Colleges. Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 28, page 581. 1886.

HARVEY, N. A. Pedagogical Content of Zoology. Proceedings National Education Association, 1899; page 1106.

HODGE, C. F. Dynamic Biology. Pedagogical Seminar, Vols. 11-12.

HUXLEY, J. H. Educational Value of Natural History Science. Essay II, Science and Education. 1854.

RUSK, R. R. Introduction to Experimental Education. Longmans, Green & Co., 1912.

SAUNDERS, S. J. Value of Research in Education. School Science and Mathematics, Vol. II, March, 1902.

SMALLWOOD, W. M. Biology as a Culture Study. Journal of Pedagogy, Vol. 17, page 231.

WELTON, J. Psychology of Education (chapter on "Character"). The Macmillan Company, 1911.

Footnotes:

[2] These problems relate particularly to the introductory courses.



V

THE TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY

Preparation of entering students a determining factor

Some of the students entering classes in chemistry in college have already had an elementary course in the subject in the high school or academy, while others have not. Again, some study chemistry in college merely for the sake of general information and culture, while many others pursue the subject because the vocation they are planning to make their life's work requires a more or less extensive knowledge of chemistry. Thus, all students in the natural sciences and their applications—as we have them in medicine, engineering, agriculture, and home economics—as well as those who are training to become professional chemists, either in the arts and industries or in teaching, must devote a considerable amount of time and energy to the study of chemistry. The teacher of college chemistry consequently must take into consideration the preparation with which the student enters his classes and also the end which is to be attained by the pursuit of the subject in the case of the various groups of students mentioned.

In the larger high schools courses in chemistry are now quite generally offered, but this is not yet true of the smaller schools. In some colleges those who have had high school chemistry are at once placed into advanced work without taking the usual basal course in general chemistry which is so arranged that students can enter it who have had no previous knowledge of the subject. In other words, in some cases the college builds directly upon the high school course in chemistry. As a rule, however, this does not prove very successful, for the high school course in chemistry is not primarily designed as a course upon which advanced college chemistry can be founded. This is as it should be, for after all, while the high school prepares students for college, its chief purpose is to act as a finishing school for those larger numbers of students who never go to college. The high school course in chemistry is consequently properly designed to give certain important chemical facts and point out their more immediate applications in the ordinary walks of life, as far as this can properly be done in the allotted time with a student of high school age and maturity. The result is consequently that while such work can very well be accepted toward satisfying college entrance requirements, it is only rarely sufficient as a basis for advanced college courses in the subject. As a rule it is best to ask all students to take the basal course in general chemistry offered in college, arranging somewhat more advanced experiments in the laboratory wherever necessary for those who have had chemistry in preparatory schools. This has become the writer's practice after careful trial of other expedients. The scheme has on the whole worked out fairly well, for it is sufficiently elastic to meet the needs of the individual students, who naturally come with preparation that is quite varied. Almost invariably students who, on account of their course in high school chemistry, are excused from the general basal course in college chemistry have been handicapped forever afterward in their advanced work in the subject.

Organization of first-year course—General chemistry

The first year's work in college chemistry consists of general chemistry. It is basal for all work that is to follow, and yet at the same time it is a finished course, giving a well-rounded survey of the subject to all who do not care to pursue it further. This basal course is commonly given in the freshman year, though sometimes it is deferred to the sophomore year. Its content is now fairly uniform in different colleges, the first semester being commonly devoted to general fundamental considerations and the chemistry of the non-metals, while the metals receive attention in the second semester, the elements of qualitative analysis being in some cases taught in connection with the chemistry of the metals.

The work is almost universally conducted by means of lectures, laboratory work, and recitations. The lectures have the purpose to unfold the subject, give general orientation as to the most important fundamental topics and points of view, and furnish impetus, guidance, and inspiration for laboratory study and reading. To this end the lectures should be illustrated by means of carefully chosen and well-prepared experiments. These serve not only to illustrate typical chemical processes, and fundamental laws, but they also stimulate interest and teach the student many valuable points of manipulation, for it is well-nigh impossible to watch an expert manipulator without absorbing valuable hints on the building up, arranging, and handling of apparatus. In the lectures the material should be presented slowly, carefully, and clearly, so that it may readily be followed by the student. Facts should always be placed in the foreground, and they should be made the basis of the generalization we call laws, and then the latter naturally lead to theoretical conceptions. It is a great mistake to begin with the atomic theory practically the first day and try to bolster up that theory with facts later on as concrete cases of chemical action are studied. On the other hand, it is also quite unwise to defer the introduction of theoretical conceptions too long, for the atomic theory is a great aid in making rapid progress in the study of chemistry. At least two or three weeks are well spent in studying fundamental chemical reactions as facts quite independent of any theories whatsoever, in order that the student may thoroughly appreciate the nature of chemical change and become familiar with enough characteristic and typical cases of chemical action so that the general laws of chemical combination by weight and by volume may be logically deduced and the atomic and molecular theories presented as based upon those laws.

Up to this stage the reactions should be written out in words and all formulation should be avoided, so that the student will not get the idea that "chemistry is the science of signs and symbols," or that "chemistry is a hypothetical science," but that he will feel that chemistry deals with certain very definite, characteristic, and fundamental changes of matter in which new substances are formed, and that these processes always go on in accordance with fixed and invariable laws, though they are influenced by conditions of temperature, pressure, light, electricity, and the presence of other substances in larger or smaller amounts. The theory and formulation when properly introduced should be an aid to the student, leading him to see that the expression of chemical facts is simplified thereby. Thus he will never make the error of regarding the symbol as the fundamental thing, but he will from the very outset look upon it simply as a useful form of shorthand expression, as it were, which is also a great aid in chemical thinking. Facts and theories should ever be kept distinct and separate in the student's mind, if he is to make real progress in the science.

A thoroughgoing, logical presentation of the subject, leading the student slowly and with a sense of perfect comprehension into the deeper and more difficult phases, should constitute one of the prime features of the work of the first year. Interest should constantly be stimulated by references to the historical development of the subject, to the practical applications in the arts and industries, to sanitation and the treatment of disease, to the providing of proper food, clothing, fuel, and shelter, to the problems of transportation and communication, to the chemical changes that are constantly going on in the atmosphere, the waters, and the crust of the earth as well as in all living beings. Nevertheless, all the time the science should be taught as the backbone of the entire course. The allusions to history and the manifold applications to daily life are indeed very important, but they must never obscure the science itself, for only thus can a thorough comprehension of chemistry be imparted and the benefits of the mental drill and culture be vouchsafed to the student.

Methods of teaching—The Lecture method

For the freshman and sophomore, two lectures per week are sufficient for this type of instruction. In these exercises the student should give his undivided attention to what is presented by the lecturer. The taking of notes is to be discouraged rather than encouraged, for it results in dividing the attention between what is presented and the mechanical work of writing. To take the place of the usual lecture notes, students of this grade had better be provided with a suitable text, definite chapters in which are assigned for reading in connection with each lecture. The text thus serves for purposes of review, and also as a means for inculcating additional details which cannot to advantage be presented in a lecture, but are best studied at home by perusing a book, the contents of which have been illuminated by the experimental demonstrations, the explanations on the blackboard, the charts, lantern slides, and above all the living development and presentation of the subject by the lecturer. The lectures should in no case be conducted primarily as an exercise in dictation and note taking. If the lectures do not give general orientation, illumination, and inspiration for further study in laboratory and library, they are an absolute failure and had better be omitted entirely. On the other hand, when properly conducted the lectures are the very life of the course.

The laboratory work

The laboratory work should be well correlated with the lectures, especially during the first year. The experiments to be performed by the student should be carefully chosen and should not be a mere repetition of the lecture demonstrations. The laboratory experiments should be both qualitative and quantitative in character. They should on the one hand illustrate the peculiar properties of the substances studied and the typical concomitant changes of chemical action, but on the other hand a sufficient number of quantitative exercises in the laboratory should be introduced to bring home to the student the laws of combining weights and volumes, thus giving him the idea that chemistry is exact and that quantitative relations always obtain when chemical action takes place. At the same time the quantitative exercises lay the basis for the proper comprehension of the laws of combining weights and volumes and the atomic and molecular theories. At least three periods of two consecutive hours each should be spent in the laboratory per week, and the laboratory exercises should be made so interesting and instructive that the student will feel inclined to work in the laboratory at odd times in addition if his program of other studies permits. The laboratory should at all times be, as its name implies, a place where work is done. Order and neatness should always prevail. Apparatus should be kept neat and clean, and in no case should slovenly habits of setting up apparatus be tolerated. The early introduction of a certain amount of quantitative experimentation in the course makes for habits of order and neatness in experimentation and guards against bringing up "sloppy" chemists.

The student's laboratory record

The laboratory notebook should be a neat and accurate record of the work in the laboratory. To this end the entries in the notebook should be made in the laboratory at the time when the experiment is actually being performed. The writing of data on loose scratch paper and then finally writing up the notebook later at home from such sheets is not to be recommended, for while thus the final appearance of the notebook may be improved, it is no longer a first-hand record such as every scientist makes, but rather a transcribed one. The student, in making up such a transcription, is only too apt to draw upon his inner consciousness to make the book appear better; indeed, when he has neglected to transcribe his notes for several days, he is bound to produce anything but a true and accurate record, to say nothing about being put to the temptation to "fake" results which he has either not at all obtained in the laboratory, or has recorded so imperfectly on the scratch paper that he can no longer interpret his record properly. The only true way is to have the notes made directly in the permanently bound notebook at the time when the experiment is actually in progress. The student ought not to take the laboratory notebook home at all without the instructor's knowledge and permission. Each experiment should be entered in the notebook in a brief, businesslike manner. Long-winded, superfluous discussions should be avoided. As a rule, drawings of apparatus in the notes are unnecessary, it being sufficient to indicate that the apparatus was set up according to Figure so-and-so in the laboratory manual or according to the directions given on page so-and-so. The student should be made to feel that the laboratory is the place where careful, purposeful experimentation is to be done, that this is the main object of the laboratory work, and that the notebook is merely a reliable record of what has been accomplished. To this end the data in the notebook should be complete, yet brief and to the point, so that what has been done can be looked up again and that the instructor may know that the experiment has been performed properly, that its purpose was understood by the student, and that he has made correct observations and drawn logical conclusions therefrom. While in each case the notes should indicate the purpose of the experiment, what has actually been done and observed, and the final conclusions, it is on the whole best not to have a general cut-and-dried formula according to which each and every experiment is to be recorded. It is better to encourage a certain degree of individuality in this matter on the part of each student. Notebooks should be corrected by the teacher every week, and the student should be asked to correct all errors which the teacher has indicated. A businesslike atmosphere should prevail in the laboratory at all times, and this should be reflected in the notebooks. Anything that savors of the pedantic is to be strictly avoided. Small blackboards should be conveniently placed in the laboratory so that the instructor may use them in explaining any points that may arise. Usually the same question arises with several members of the class, and a few moments of explanation before the blackboard enable the instructor to clear up the points raised. This not only saves the instructor's time, but it also stimulates interest in the laboratory when explanations are thus given to small groups just when the question is hot.

It is, of course, assumed that the necessary amount of apparatus, chemicals, and other supplies is available, and that the laboratory desks, proper ventilation of the rooms, and safeguards in the case of all experiments fraught with danger have received the necessary painstaking attention on the part of the instructor, who must never for a moment relax in looking after these matters, which it is not the purpose to discuss here. At all times the student should work intelligently and be fully aware of any dangers that are inherent in what he is doing. It need hardly be said that a beginner should not be set at experiments that are specially dangerous. Having been given proper directions, the student should be taught to go ahead with confidence, for working in constant trepidation that an accident may occur often creates a nervous state that brings about the accident. Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon proper, definite laboratory instructions, especially as to kinds and amounts of materials to be used. Such directions as "take a little phosphorus," for example, should be strictly avoided, for the direction as to amount is absolutely indefinite and may in the case where phosphorus or any other dangerous substance is used lead to dire accidents. The student should be given proper and very definite directions, and then he should be taught to follow these absolutely and not use more of the materials than is specified, as the beginner is so apt to do, thus often wasting his time and the reagents as well. Economy and the correct use of all laboratory supplies should be inculcated indirectly all the time. A fixed set of printed rules for the laboratory is generally neither necessary nor desirable when students are properly directed to work intelligently as they go, and good directions are given in the laboratory manual. Thus a spirit of doing intelligently what is right and proper, guarding against accidents, economizing in time and materials of all kinds will soon become dominant in the laboratory and will greatly add to the efficiency of the workers. Minor accidents are almost bound to occur at times in spite of all precautions, and the instructor should be ready to cope with these promptly by means of a properly supplied first-aid kit.

Recitations and quizzes

For students of the first year quizzes or recitations should be held at least twice a week. In these exercises the ground covered in the lectures and laboratory work should be carefully and systematically reviewed. The quiz classes should not be too large. Twenty-five students is the upper limit for a quiz section. The laboratory sections too should not be larger than this, and it is highly desirable that the same instructor conduct both the recitation and the immediate laboratory supervision of the student. Lecture classes can, of course, be very much larger in number. In most colleges the attendance upon classes in chemistry is so large that it is not possible for the professor to deliver the lectures and also personally conduct all of the laboratory work and recitations. It is consequently necessary to divide the class up into small sections for laboratory and quiz purposes. It is highly desirable that the student become well acquainted with his individual instructor in laboratory and quiz work, and therefore it would be unfortunate to have one instructor in the laboratory and still another instructor in the quiz. It might be argued that it is a good thing to have the student become acquainted with a number of instructors, but in the writer's experience such practice results to the disadvantage of the student, and is consequently not to be recommended.

In the recitations the student is to be encouraged to do the talking. He is to be given an opportunity to ask questions as well as to answer the queries put by the teacher. Short written exercises of about ten minutes' duration can be given to advantage in each of these recitations. In this way the entire class writes upon a well-chosen question or solves a numerical chemical problem and thus a great deal of time is saved. The quiz room should be well provided with blackboards which may be used to great advantage in the writing of equations and the solution of chemical problems just as in a class in mathematics. The textbook, from which readings are assigned to the student in connection with the lectures, should contain questions which recapitulate the contents of each chapter. When such questions are not contained in the book, they ought to be provided by the teacher on printed or mimeographed sheets. When properly conducted, the recitation aids greatly in clarifying, arranging and fixing the important points of the course in the mind of the student. Young instructors are apt to make the mistake of doing too much talking in the quiz, instead of encouraging the student to express his views. In these days, when foreign languages and mathematics are more or less on the wane in colleges, the proper study of chemistry, particularly in the well-conducted quiz, will go far toward supplying the mental drill which the older subjects have always afforded.

Summary of first-year course

If the work of the first year has been properly conducted, it will have given the student a general view of the whole field of chemistry, together with a sufficient amount of detail so securely anchored in careful laboratory work and practical experience as to form a basis for either more advanced work in chemical lines or in the pursuance of the vocations already mentioned in which a knowledge of chemistry is basal. It is hardly necessary to add that if well taught, the student will at the end of such a course have a desire for more chemistry.

Organization of second-year course

The work of the second year of chemistry in college generally consists of quantitative analysis, though the more intensive study of the compounds of carbon, known as organic chemistry, is also frequently taken up at this time, and there is much to be said in favor of such practice.

Content of the course in quantitative analysis

In the quantitative analysis, habits of neatness and accuracy must be insisted upon. It is well to give the general orientation and directions by means of lectures. One or two such exercises per week will suffice. There should also be recitations. When two lectures per week are given, it will suffice to review the work with the student in connection with such lectures, provided the class is not too large for quiz purposes. Intelligent work should characterize a course in quantitative analysis. To this end the student should be taught how to take proper representative samples of the material to be analyzed. He should then be taught how to weigh or measure out that sample with proper care. The manipulations of the analytical process should be carried out so that each step is properly understood and its relations to the general laws of chemistry are constantly before the mind. In carrying out the process, the various sources of error must be thoroughly appreciated and guarded against. The final weighing or measuring of the form in which the ingredient sought is estimated should again be carried out with care, and in the calculation of the percentage content due regard should be had for the limits of error of experimentation throughout the entire analytical process. The student feels that a large number of the exercises in quantitative analysis are virtually cases of making chemical preparations of the highest possible purity, thus connecting his previous chemical experience with his quantitative work. The course in quantitative analysis should cover the determination of the more important basic and acid radicals, and should consist of both gravimetric and volumetric exercises.

The choice of the exercises is of great importance. It may vary, and should vary considerably in different cases. Thus a student in agriculture is naturally interested in the methods of estimating lime, phosphorus, nitrogen, potash, silica, sulphur, etc., whereas a student in engineering would be more interested in work with the heavy metals and the ingredients which the commercial samples of such metals are apt to contain. Thus, analytical work on solder, bearing metal, iron and steel, cement, etc., should be introduced as soon as the student in engineering is ready for it. It is quite possible to inculcate the principles of quantitative analysis by selecting exercises in which the individual student is interested, though, to be sure, certain fundamental things would naturally have to be taken by all students, whatever be the line for which they are training. A few exercises in gas analysis and also water analysis should be given in every good course in quantitative analysis that occupies an entire year. Careful attention should be given to the notebook in the quantitative work, and the student should also be made to feel that in modern quantitative analysis not only balances and burettes are to serve as the measuring instruments, but that the polariscope and the refractometer also are very important, and that at times still other physical instruments like the spectroscope, the electrometer, and the viscometer may prove very useful indeed.

The quantitative analysis offers a splendid opportunity for bringing home to the student what he has learned in the work of the first year, showing him one phase of the application of that knowledge and making him feel, as it were, the quantitative side of science. This latter view can be imparted only to a limited degree in the first year's work, but the quantitative course offers an unusual opportunity for giving the student an application of the fundamental quantitative laws which govern all chemical processes. It is not possible to analyze very many substances during any college course in quantitative analysis. The wise teacher will choose the substances to be analyzed so as to keep up the interest of the student and yet at the same time give him examples of all the fundamental cases that are commonly met in the practice of analytical work. A careful, painstaking, intelligent worker should be the result of the course in quantitative analysis. Toward the end of the course, too, a certain amount of speed should be insisted upon. The student should be taught to carry on several processes at the same time, but care should be taken not to overdo this.

The course in organic chemistry

In the course in organic chemistry, lectures, laboratory work, and recitations, arranged very much as to time as in the first year, will be found advantageous. If the intensive work in organic chemistry is postponed to the third year in college, there are certain advantages. For example, the student is more mature and has had drill and experience in the somewhat simpler processes commonly taught in general and analytical chemistry. On the other hand, the postponing of organic chemistry to the third year has the disadvantage that the student goes through his basal training in quantitative analysis without the help of that larger horizon which can come to him only through the study of the methods of organic chemistry. The general work of the first year, to be sure, if well done compensates in part for what is lost by postponing organic chemistry till the third year, but it can never entirely remove the loss to the student. Teachers will differ as to whether the time-honored division of organic chemistry into the aliphatic and aromatic series should be maintained pedagogically, but they will doubtless all agree that the methods of working out the structure of the chemical compound are peculiarly characteristic of the study of the compounds of carbon, and these methods must consequently constitute an important point to be inculcated in organic chemistry. The derivation of the various types of organic compounds from the fundamental hydrocarbons as well as from one another, and the characteristic reactions of each of these fundamental forms which lead to their identification and also often serve as a means of their purification, should naturally be taught in a thoroughgoing manner. The numerous practical applications which the teacher of organic chemistry has at his command will always serve to make this subject one of the deepest interest, if not the most fascinating portion of the entire subject of chemistry. No student should leave the course in organic chemistry without feeling the beautiful unity and logical relationship which obtains in the case of the compounds of carbon, the experimental study of which has cast so much light upon the chemical processes in living plants and animals, processes upon which life itself depends. The analysis of organic compounds is probably best taught in connection with the course in organic chemistry. It is here that the student is introduced to the use of the combustion furnace and the method of working out the empirical formulae of the compounds which he has carefully prepared and purified. The laboratory practice in organic chemistry generally requires the use of larger pieces of apparatus. Some of the experiments also are connected with peculiar dangers of their own. These facts require that the student should not approach the course without sufficient preliminary training. Furthermore, the teacher needs to exercise special care in supervising the laboratory work so as to guard the student against serious accidents.

The historical development of organic chemistry is especially interesting, and allusions to the history of the important discoveries and developments of ideas in organic chemistry should be used to stimulate interest and so enhance the value of the work of the student. The practical side of organic chemistry should never be lost sight of for a moment, and under no condition should the course be allowed to deteriorate into one of mere picturing of structural formulae on the blackboard. All chemical formulas are merely compact forms of expression of what we know about chemical compounds. There are, no doubt, many facts about chemical compounds which their accepted formulas do not express at all, and the wise teacher should lead the student to see this. There is peculiar danger in the course in organic chemistry that the pupil become a mere formula worshiper, and this must carefully be guarded against.

The applications of organic chemistry to the arts and industries, but especially to biochemistry, will no doubt interest many members of the class of a course in organic chemistry if the subject is properly taught. This will be particularly the case if the teacher always holds before the mind of the pupil the actual realities in the laboratory and in nature, using formulation merely as the expression of our knowledge and not as an end in itself.

Place of physical chemistry in the college curriculum

Physical chemistry, commonly regarded as the youngest and by its adherents the most important and all-pervading branch of chemistry, is presented very early in the college course by some teachers, and postponed to the junior and even the senior year by others. Just as a certain amount of organic chemistry should be taught in the first year, so a few of the most fundamental principles of physical chemistry must also find a place in the basal work of the beginner. However, in the first year's work in chemistry so many phases of the subject must needs be presented in order to give a good general view, that many details in either organic, analytical, or physical chemistry must necessarily be omitted. What is to be taught in that important basal year must, therefore, be selected with extreme care. Moreover, so far as physical chemistry is concerned, it is in a way chemical philosophy or general chemistry in the broadest sense of the word, and consequently requires for its successful pursuit not only a basal course, but also proper knowledge of analytical and organic chemistry, as well as a grounding in physics, crystallography, and mathematics. At the same time a certain amount of biological study is highly desirable. A good course in physical chemistry postulates lectures, laboratory work, and recitations. In general, these should be arranged much like those in the basal course and the course in organic chemistry. If anything, more time should be put upon the lectures and recitations; certainly more time should be devoted to exercises of this kind than in the course in quantitative analysis, which is best taught in the laboratory. At the same time it would be a mistake to teach physical chemistry without laboratory practice. Indeed, laboratory practice is the very life of physical chemistry, and the more of such work we can have, the better. However, since physical chemistry, as already stated, delves into the philosophical field, discussions in the lecture hall and classroom become of peculiar importance.

Courses in applied chemistry

Many colleges now give additional courses in chemical technology. These would naturally come after the student has had a sufficient foundation in general chemistry, chemical analysis, and organic and physical chemistry. As a rule such applied courses ought not to be given until the junior or senior year. It is a great mistake to introduce such courses earlier, for the student cannot do the work in an intelligent manner.

Enthusiastic teaching a vital factor

In all the courses in chemistry, interest and enthusiasm are of vital importance. These can be instilled only by the teacher himself, and no amount of laying out courses on paper and giving directions, however valuable they may be, can possibly take the place of an able, devoted, enthusiastic teacher. Chemistry deals with things, and hence is always best taught in the laboratory. The classroom and the library should create interest and enthusiasm for further laboratory work, and in turn the laboratory work should yield results that will finally manifest themselves in the form of good written reports.

The teacher must continue his researches

Original work should always be carried on by the college teacher. If he fails in this, his teaching will soon be dead. There will always be some bright students who can help him in his research work. These should be led on and developed along lines of original thought. From this source there will always spring live workers in the arts and industries as well as in academic lines. Lack of facilities and time is often pleaded by the college teacher as an excuse for not doing original work. There is no doubt that such facilities are often very meager. Nevertheless, the enthusiastic teacher is bound to find the time and also the means for doing some original work. A great deal cannot be expected of him as a rule because of his pedagogical duties, but a certain amount of productive work is absolutely essential to any live college teacher.

Future of chemistry in the college curriculum

The importance of chemistry in daily life and in the industries has been increasing and is bound to continue to increase. For this reason the subject is destined to take a more important place in the college curriculum. If well taught, college chemistry will not only widen the horizon of the student, but it will also afford him both manual training and mental drill and culture of the highest order.

LOUIS KAHLENBERG University of Wisconsin



VI

THE TEACHING OF PHYSICS

The need of giving to physics a prominent place in the college curriculum of the twentieth century is quite universally admitted. If, as an eminent medical authority maintains, no man can be said to be educated who has not the knowledge of trigonometry, how much more true is this statement with reference to physics? The five human senses are not more varied in scope than are the five great domains of this science. In the study of heat, sound, and light we may strive merely to understand the nature of the external stimuli that come to us through touch, hearing and sight; but in mechanics, where we examine critically the simplest ideas of motion and inertia, we acquire the method of analysis which when applied to the mysteries of molecular physics and electricity carries us along avenues that lead to the most profound secrets of nature. Utilitarian aspects dwindle in our perspective as we face the problem of the structure, origin, and evolution of matter—as we question the independence of space and time. Modern physics possesses philosophic stature of heroic size.

Utilitarian value of the study Of physics

But with regard to everyday occurrences a study of physics is necessary. It is trite to mention the development in recent years of those mechanical and electrical arts that have made modern civilization. The submarine, vitalized by storage battery and Diesel engine, the torpedo with its gyroscopic pilot and pneumatic motors, the wireless transmission of speech over seas and continents—these things no longer excite wonder nor claim attention as we scan the morning paper; yet how many understand their mechanism or appreciate the spirit which has given them to the world?