NATURE STUDY AND LIFE By Clifton F. Hodge, Assistant Professor of Physiology and Neurology in Clark University, Worcester, Mass. With an Introduction by Dr. G. Stanley Hall. 12 mo. Cloth. 514 pages. List price, $1.50. "Nature Study and Life" is intended to assist teachers in directing their pupils in naturestudy work, and to be used by the children themselves as a reference book. It has twice formed the basis for nature study courses in the Clark University Summer School; it has further stood the more practical test of teachers' institutes in various states; and, finally, its most important suggestions have been tried thoroughly in the schoolroom. How to Make the Most of Your Magazine Money By arrangement with the magazine, Success, we are able to extend to our readers some exceptional combinations of well-known periodicals with the SCHOOL PHYSIOLOGY JOURNAL, a series of money saving offers that is unparalleled. Here is our list: Regular Price Regular Price $1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 .60 1. THE SCHOOL PHYSIOLOGY JOURNAL, Success and any one of the above dollar magazines, total price $2.60, for only $2.10 2. THE SCHOOL PHYSIOLOGY JOURNAL, Success, and any two of the above dollar magazines, total price $3.60, for only 2.60 3. THE SCHOOL PHYSIOLOGY JOURNAL, Success, and Review of Reviews* (new), total price $4.10, for only 2.60 4. THE SCHOOL PHYSIOLOGY JOURNAL, Success, Review of Reviews (new)*, and any one of the dollar magazines, total price $5.10, for only 3.10 *Note. Current Literature (new) or New England Magazine may be substituted for the Review of Reviews in this combination. SPECIAL. Subscriptions may be either new or renewals except to the Review of Reviews and Current Foreign postage extra. All magazines sent to one or different addresses. TO OUR Subscriptions will begin with issues requested whenever possible to supply copies, otherREADERS. wise with the month following that in which the subscriptions are received. Send in your orders early with the names of the magazines, the addresses to which they are to be sent, and the necessary remittance. Address all orders to School Physiology Journal, 23 Trull Street, Boston, Mass. 60726-190 20.61 T School Physiology Journal Vol. XII BOSTON, SEPTEMBER, 1902 T HE claim urged that there is a reaction on the part of educators in general against the study of temperance physiology in the public schools has little basis in fact. The great body of teachers are for the honest and thorough pursuit of this study. The claim that, for the sake of harmony with the teachers concessions from what the good of the children and the state calls for must be made to satisfy the teachers rests on an unproved assumption as to their attitude. Looked at from the largest point of view, the question is, always, what is for the best good of the children and the state soon to be governed by them. Whoever is seeking first of all for harmony on this question is on the wrong track. The graveyard is the most harmonious place on this planet. There is no conflict of opinion there, but in the world of life where human progress has to beat its way, battle is almost always the price of harmony for the right. If Luther had said we must have harmony in order that the doctrine of justification by faith may go to the people, how different would have been the history of the world. Every compromise for the sake of harmony and union in that conflict of opinion which preceded the Civil War only hastened the four 12 No. I years of blood which were the price of freedom for the slave. The issue now pending is, shall the coming majorities be educated in the lower grades of our public schools, where alone they can be reached, to obedience to the laws of health including those which teach total abstinence. Observation of the results of two schemes of study in temperance physiology, one books, the other without them, an observation which began twenty years ago and covers not only our entire country but seven or eight other nations that have adopted in whole or in part what is called the American System of Scientific Temperance Instruction, shows that this study must necessarily be an oral and somewhat dogmatic one in the first three primary years. But fourth year pupils, ordinarily about ten years of age, having learned to read, are gaining information in other studies from books that are adapted to their grade in addition to what they learn from the teacher. The same plan is needed in this branch. The pedagogical fad that would remove text-books from these grades seems to be chiefly applied to this branch. Fourth year pupils have reached a stage of development fitting them to understand such simple physiological reasons for obeying the laws of health, including those that teach abstinence from alcoholic drinks and other narcotics, as are necessary to influence the formation of right habits at that impressionable age. The subject broadens so much, beginning with the fourth year, that the average teacher is liable to teach error rather than truth in trying to put into simple language for a purely oral lesson such a science as physiology, in which frequently she has had insufficient training. Without books in the hands of fourth year pupils, to be used according to the best modern methods, the lessons, if not omitted altogether, are apt to degenerate into mere story telling or repeated exhortation. Such inadequate instruction, instead of truths that will guide to intelligent action, is all that the host of children who leave school at the end of the fourth year to become bread-winners get from the schools under the no-text-book plan. A course of study that specifies the essential topics to be taught, and at the same time recommends that pupils who can read shall be deprived of books that tell what they ought to know about these topics, is an anomaly. The practical value of a mere mention of topics in a course of study is small, if the printed page |