THE-EVOLUTION OF SCIENCE

Those who try to guide their college path along the line of least resistance, find themselves awkwardly balked by the science, requirement and, panic-stricken, choose whatever course has the least laboratory exercise. Others, by nature scientifically inclined, rejoice at the opportunity here for indulging their appetite. Between these two lie a great number who honestly desire a well-rounded cultivation which will include a general acquaintance with the field of science, but who have been forced by the make-up of the science department to limit their acquaintance to a year spent in some specific field. This enforced imprisonment with test tubes or telescopes or frogs not only failed to show the relationship and importance of science but made the study toilsome, instead of interesting. Not being able to see the forest for the trees, students have become dissatisfied.

That dissatisfaction found vocal expression last fall, and the new course offered by the Science Department seems to be the result. Biology 1, to be offered next year, is a full course, replacing Zoology 1 and Botany 1 and combining their respective ingredients. By this combination the evolution of living things, the conditions necessary for life, and the effect of environment on life will be treated as a whole. Study will not be confined to earthly conditions but will search out the stars and the solar system. In such an inclusive program, not only Zoology and Botany will play parts, but also Astronomy and Geology.

In each of the other divisions of the elective pamphlet, courses already exist which serve as satisfactory introductions for men who can afford only one year of study in that field. History 1 and Philosophy A both fit this need. English 28, for the student who wants only one course in literature, is planned ideally, and the fact that it is to be open in the future for Sophomores as well as Freshmen will more than double its usefulness. In all three of these courses there is a common advantage: the different phases of the subject are each treated by a specialist. Biology 1 has this same merit.

The new courses will not, to be sure, satisfy all the needs of a general science course, no single course could cover the whole field-adequately. It will not consider the structure of matter; it will be concerned with organic evolution, rather than both organic and inorganic. Physics, chemistry, and some of the more remote branches of science must be slighted. But its lecturers, leaders in their subjects, will be able to put into the course a meaning and a completeness which is at present lacking; while the one laboratory period, if properly conducted, can provide the desired introduction to scientific method, without undue drudgery. Freshmen who are now deciding the difficult of Distribution and who are not drawn to any particular branch of science will find their answer in Biology 1.