BIOLOGY IN SCHOOLS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 105, 27 January 1933, Page 9

BIOLOGY IN SCHOOLS

Value in Cultural and Social Training DISCUSSION IN ENGLAND At the national conference on the place of biology in education, which concluded its meetings in England recently, the importance of biology as the basis of a sociological and cultural education was given as the chief reason for the extension of the teaching of biology in schools. Hitherto the value of biology in its applications In medicine, agriculture, hygiene, etc., has generally been regarded as the justification for biological courses. An impressive group of public men, Civil Servants, and scientists appeared on the platform to plead for more biology in education. Viscount Chelmsford, Sir Stephen Tallents, Sir Walter Fletcher, Sir William Hardy, Professor A. V. Hill, and other speakers showed that they were concerned with the world’s present social crisis, and were looking to biology to give youth a biological outlook which would improve their human understanding, so that inter-racial and other difficulties might be resolved. After the social motive, the cultural value of biology was stressed. Biology Civilisation. Professor Hill contended that as human beings are living beings, they themselves and their society could not be understood without biology. Civilisation, he said, was a product of a certain sort of biological organism, ourselves, and was therefore a biological entity. 'Consequently, civilisation was incomprehensible without a knowledge of biology. The Rev. 8. A. McDowall opened a discussion on the methods of teaching biology. He is the biology master at Winchester College, and spoke on the problem as he saw it In a public school. He stated his belief that while the supply of suitable biology courses was one of the most pressing needs In public schools, these courses should come late in the general science course. The boy was human and most humanly interested in his body: he was also humanly rational and wanted to know something of his mind and its place in the universe. He wanted to know something of the functions of digestion, respiration, and secretion. Such a course required a previous study of physics and chemistry, and a fairly developed mind. For this reason biology was not a suitable subject for school certificate examinations. No Simple Matter. Dr. R. H. Crawley, Senior Medical Officer of the Board of Education, related the teaching of biology in elementary schools with public health. New health education, he said, was no simple matter, and it could not be done without being grounded in biology. The contemporary discussions of sex-teach-ing in schools were really a result of the failure to teach biology properly. Every child who left school at fourteen years of age should have a clear •knowledge of the function of sex in animals, plants, and himself. Mr. D. Ward Cutler, biologist to the Rothamsted Experimental Station, argued that biology lent itself to interesting teaching, especially for young children. They were usually interested in animals, and this Interest might be used as the foundation for sound.teaching. It was necessary to realise that human beings were the product of evolution, and that their nature was based on animal nature. No child should leave school without knowing this. When the relation of human and animal nature was understood the pupil came to see that evolution and civilisation "were a product of selfcontrol.