26 TEACHING SCIENCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

the taxonomic approach will kill interest in any course in high
school. Biology must live, as it is the science of living things.
Even in the laboratory live objects are better than dead ones.
More than in any other science, the living environment furnishes
the place for class activities.

 Special objectives of the teaching of biology. Among the more
significant are these:
 1. To understand the most important principles of living
 nature.
 2. To develop a reasonable degree of skill in the scientific
 method of thinking on matters biological.
 3. To develop an objective attitude toward the give and take
 of nature, which is both cruel and kind.
 4. "(Teach) Not only labors, but the loveliness of the earth."
 -Ruskin.
 5. To acquire attitudes on life, health, and conduct that may
 develop from the understanding of biology.
 6. To appreciate the work of great biologists who have con-
 tributed toward our understanding of nature.

 The trends of biology teaching. The 46th Yearbook of the
National Society for the study of Education, Science Education
in American Schools, presents the following, (page 184):
 "During the past ten years, particularly, the trend has been toward
 focusing attention less on the organization of subject matter and more
 on the results in the lives of the learners. It has been demonstrated that
 changes in behavior can accompany learning.
 "More specifically, the subject matter of the high-school biology
 course should include materials related to:
 1. Health (personal and public, including physical fitness, food and
 nutrition, disease, safety, mental health, etc.).
 2. Reproduction, heredity, and the effect of the environment (as re-
 lated to personal and social problems, individual and group dif-
 ferences, improvement of living organisms, etc.).
 3. The conservation of living things.
 4. The structure and functions of living things, especially of the
 human body.
 5. The conditions necessary to support life, and adaptations of liv-
 ing things.