facts to an intelligent craving for systematic knowledge. The transition from curiosity to interest is a critical time for both teacher and pupil. Too often a thoughtless word, an unintentional oversight, or a palpable lack of interest on the teacher's part may upset the delicate poise of the pupil's mind and turn to permanent indifference or reckless curiosity what might have become lifelong interest. Special care should be taken by the teacher to gather up the disconnected observations made by pupils and place them before the learner in such a light that the threads of curiosity will become the fabric of interest. Once interested, the pupil should be led on into the realm of voluntary attention. It is this factor that we all need to develop, for it is of incalculable value in the acquisition of knowledge; it is essential to complete psychic life.

Pupils seldom see the importance of voluntary attention. They are contented to "do experiments" and stop there. They need to be taught the fundamental value of learning to complete with success an experiment requiring patience, skill and confidence. The necessity of teaching voluntary attention is one reason why I believe so firmly that simple quantitative experiments should form a definite part of an elementary course in chemistry. Such work cultivates voluntary attention. As I have watched my classes for several years perform simple experiments involv ing accurate weighing or measuring, I have been forced to conclude that this work is the most effective way of teaching voluntary attention. It requires an effort of the will for spirited pupils to sit quietly before a balance till the pans stop swinging, to wait for a solution to run down the inside of a burette before the volume is read, to let a thermometer remain in a liquid long enough to assume the temperature of the liquid. But this very effort of the will is needed day after day when the pupil leaves school. It must be acquired, if one is to be a successful worker in any field.

Whatever or wherever our occupation, whether in Syracuse or Manila, we shall always need the power to think continuously, work skilfully, and judge accurately. We do not need chemists half so much as we need men who will voluntarily attend to their work. The problems which are coming on us as a nation need for their solution men who have been trained

to do things accurately, with dispatch, with a regard for all the evidence, with a profound love of truth, for that truth which is so forcefully exhibited by the laws of chemistry, for that outer truth which arouses in one a consciousness of inward truth.

Closely related to curiosity, interest, and attention is the prin ciple of inhibition. It was thought about half a century ago that certain nerves checked the action of certain muscles. This is doubtless true, but it is a narrow interpretation of a more general function of the nervous system. This conception of arrest has been extended to cover our mental life, irrespective of nerve stimulus as such, and is called inhibition. It is not necessary that an inhibiting idea be specially strong to arrest another idea, for here as elsewhere the mental machinery is delicately adjusted. A strong motor idea may be easily and completely inhibited by a simple and apparently foreign idea. Faint impressions on the confines of consciousness may throw a strong idea completely off the track. Some trivial observation may upset a thought which is seeking expression, and either arrest it completely or so modify it that the final judgment is delayed or even completely abandoned. Pupils should not be allowed to yield to unwarranted inhibitions. Provision should be made in all laboratory work for allowing the pupil's mind to travel without needless inhibitions from the object of the experiment through the manipulation to the conclusion. The work should be so supervised that pupils will see the whole field of consciousness and not yield to reckless impulse or foolish inhibition. Many books now in use actually prevent the mind from acting calmly, continuously, and logically. Experiments to be mentally profitable should be so expressed and arranged that the average pupil can not fail to grasp the title, the exact method of procedure, the essential observations to be made, and the probable conclusion which the observations will permit. The title of each experiment should be known so that the pupil may have an initial idea, a mental start, a guiding star. Unless he begins correctly, he may not, probably will not, end correctly. A knowledge of the exact method of procedure is essential, otherwise he will not know how, when or where to begin his work, nor can he carry it on intelligently, confidently, profitably. A great deal of time is wasted in a laboratory because pupils do

not know how to work, and in many cases they are not to blame for this aimless, fruitless labor, because they were not at some time told or shown how to work. They yield to some foolish inhibition or reckless impulse, simply because they see no other path. Again, the desired observations should be indicated in some way. Pupils are learning how to observe; one object of experimental work is to teach observation. Surely we ought not to assume what we are trying to teach. Beginners do not know the difference between the trivial and the important, the scientific and the unscientific. They must be pointed toward the path having the fewest inhibitions, even though such direction reveals some truth which they might possibly discover if sufficient time were taken. Finally, each experiment should lead to some definite result. Otherwise the student is left suspended. is actually robbed of the inestimable privilege of drawing a conclusion. Experience shows, however, that this conclusion must be indicated. It need not be deliberately told, but it can be suggested by appropriate questions. Such questions eliminate inhibitions, they conduct the mind along a logical path, they extend a helping hand to a halting thought, they train the mind to pass from cause to effect.

If you ask how the teacher may attain the power to apply these principles, the answer is simple. Study your pupils and yourself, but yourself the more. The problem has only two unknown quantities-yourself and your pupil. Success depends on the teacher's knowledge of his own psychologic and spiritual life as well as on the discovery of mental crises in his pupils. He must create an atmosphere which fosters calm, deliberate, confident, tranquil mental action. He himself must have passed through the gates of curiosity and interest into the temple of voluntary attention before he can lead others to the same spot. He must acquire that spiritual insight which perceives the truth in himself, he must be constantly conscious of that better self, for it is this unseen self which teaches.

Section B. BIOLOGY

PREPARATION OF SECONDARY TEACHERS IN BIOLOGY

BY PROF. FRANCIS E. LLOYD, TEACHERS COLLEGE, NEW YORK We may well, at the outset, present our conception of the high school as a factor in the preparation of men and women for their life. The most important feature of the high school lies in the fact that it is the final and only school of higher education for the multitude of men and women in the higher walks of life. Only a very small proportion have had or will have in the future more than a high school training. To give the very best opportunities for that education in the most efficient way is a task worthy of the best efforts of highly educated, trained and earnest teachers, which our unexampled opportunities for higher education can supply. This much must be conceded and kept ever in the foreground of the teacher's consciousness that to do the daily round of duties as a leader of a generation of youth just on the threshold of manhood and womanhood is a high privilege not to be measured by dollars and cents, nor even by the approval, often too tardy, of the audience of parents and supervisors, but by the conviction that his work will surely count for the amelioration of the individual morally, mentally and physically. A teacher with such a conviction, and thoroughly equipped for his work is filling a high office in society. It is not too much to expect and demand that persons who look to filling such an office shall be able to satisfy all the demands for efficiency which may in justice be made on them,

What, then, are the demands as actually formulated? On this point there is at this time no general unity, but for our present purpose we may examine the regulations formulated by New York city. These represent the maximum demand, and will serve for the time being as a goal for which the rest of the country would do well to strive.

Scholastic attainments and teaching experience are set off against each other. When the former are present, in the highest amount, they consist in bachelor's degree and two years' postgraduate study, accompanied by some knowledge of the science of education. In the absence of these, eight years' successful experience may be substituted for them. Though these

demands represent the extreme in this country, it will be noticed that a candidate may enter the work with no teaching experi ence and after no special study of the problems which he has to face, and the special methods of the subject involved. Otherwise, the demands are fair, and have been effective in building up a body of efficient teachers.

Let us now turn our attention to the actual conditions which obtain in the large majority of our high schools throughout the country. The teachers may, roughly speaking, be considered, as to their origin, as consisting of two groups; those, namely, who have had no regular opportunities beyond the normal school and whose preparation has been received primarily there; and, secondly, those who are college graduates merely, or hold one or more of the higher degrees. It must not be understood that we are, in considering these facts, launching any criticisms against the many able teachers who, with acknowledged incompleteness of training, are themselves doing all in their power to advance the educational work of the high schools. It is, however, necessary to collate the facts in order to aid in bringing about the much needed development toward a uniformly high standard of work. The greatest step toward this is gained when we demand and get uniformity in the preparation of the teachers themselves. And by uniformity we mean, not a rigid formal kind of uniformity, but a uniformly high grade of teachers, whose work shall always be above a standard of quality we can hardly at present be said to have reached.

The teaching force of our high school, then, is made up, in the first place, of persons who have at best made use of the oppor tunities afforded by the average normal schools. Of such, some have gone directly into high schools after, perhaps, supplementing their attainments by taking courses in summer schools, at seaside laboratories and the like. These persons have had, it is admitted, certain advantages over the college-trained, to be considered later, in that some attention has been paid to the general and particular educational requirements demanded of the candidate for school positions. We must observe, however, that such training as they get is very insufficient in amount and admittedly adapted, not to the needs of the secondary, but to those of the elementary teacher. And here we contend that