4 TEACHING SCIENCE IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

cratic living. When the pupil who asked about life on Mars
learned that opinions and truth can serve as guides for action
and yet be held tentatively, anticipating modification, he learned
another lesson needed by those who lived in a democracy. Again
these are but small samples of the ways in which science may
contribute to learning the elements of democratic living when
teachers are alert to the possibilities.
 Major purposes as guides to action. The importance of
these major purposes as guides to action can not be over-empha-
sized. It is from his analysis of what science can do for children
that a teacher comes to a full understanding of the need for
including science in the curriculum of the elementary school.
The purposes are such that they should be kept in mind ready
to be used in estimating the possibilities in every new learning
situation. They should be part and parcel of every experience.
They should color all activities, including what is taught, how
it is taught, and especially how it is evaluated. A full realiza-
tion of these purposes leads to the recognition of the way of
work as an essential or distinguishing quality in science in-
struction.

The Place of Science in the Elementary School
 Science plays a tremendous part in present day living. The
 limits of its possible contributions to human welfare and the
 advancement of civilization are not yet in sight. The control
 of its great forces in meeting human needs is a fundamental
 social problem. A school curriculum that did not provide for
 this important aspect of life would indeed be inadequate and
 incomplete. Science in the elementary school does not purport
 to develop white-coated laboratory workers or research scien-
 tists, nor to overwhelm children with complex social problems
 far removed from children's capacity to take action. Science
 for the elementary child is in his everyday living. He cannot
 escape it, even if he wanted to, either in questions about his im-
 mediate environment or in the need for a way of problem solving
 and working with others. The function of science in the ele-
 mentary school is to make the world more intelligible to the child
 and to equip him with a way of thinking and a method of prob-
 lem solving.
 The Relationship of Science to the Major Goals of Educa-
 tion. The aims of elementary education in a democracy are, in
 large part, the aims of society. It is therefore worthwhile to
 consider what contribution instruction in science makes to the
 general aims of education. If the general aims are summarized
 as the need to develop boys and girls who are socially sensitive,
 who have increasing control over functional skills, who use re-