Produced by Mark C. Orton, Carol Ann Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) [Illustration: Compare the unfavorable artificial environment of a crowded city with the more favorable environment of the country.] A CIVIC BIOLOGY Presented in Problems BY GEORGE WILLIAM HUNTER, A.M. HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY, DE WITT CLINTON HIGH SCHOOL, CITY OF NEW YORK. AUTHOR OF "ELEMENTS OF BIOLOGY," "ESSENTIALS OF BIOLOGY," ETC. [Illustration: Printer's Logo] AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY GEORGE WILLIAM HUNTER. COPYRIGHT, 1914, IN GREAT BRITAIN. * * * * * HUNTER, CIVIC BIOLOGY. W. P. 3 Dedicated TO MY FELLOW TEACHERS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY IN THE DE WITT CLINTON HIGH SCHOOL WHOSE CAPABLE, EARNEST, UNSELFISH AND INSPIRING AID HAS MADE THIS BOOK POSSIBLE FOREWORD TO TEACHERS A course in biology given to beginners in the secondary school should have certain aims. These aims must be determined to a degree, first, by the capabilities of the pupils, second, by their native interests, and, third, by the environment of the pupils. The boy or girl of average ability upon admission to the secondary school is not a thinking individual. The training given up to this time, with but rare exceptions, has been in the forming of simple concepts. These concepts have been reached didactically and empirically. Drill and memory work have been the pedagogic vehicles. Even the elementary science work given has resulted at the best in an interpretation of some of the common factors in the pupil's environment, and a widening of the meaning of some of his concepts. Therefore, the first science of the secondary school, elementary biology, should be primarily the vehicle by which the child is taught to solve problems and to think straight in so doing. No other subject is more capable of logical development. No subject is more vital because of its relation to the vital things in the life of the child. A series of experiments and demonstrations, discussed and applied as definite concrete problems which have arisen within the child's horizon, will develop power in thinking more surely than any other subject in the first year of the secondary school.