IV
The Teaching of Biology
Biology and Education
Biology the science basal to all knowing
The life sciences, broadly conceived, are basal to all departments of knowledge; and the study of biology illumines every field of human interest. To the believer in evolution the human body, brain, senses, intellect, sensations, impulses, habits, ideas, knowledges, ideals, standards, attractions, sympathies, combinations, organizations, institutions, and all other powers and possessions of every kind and degree are merely crowning phenomena of life itself. The languages, history, science, economic systems, philosophies, and literatures of mankind are only special manifestations and expressions of life and a part, therefore, of the studies by which we as living beings are trying to appraise and appreciate the meaning of life and of the universe of which life is the most significant product. Life is not merely the most notable product of our universe; it is the most persuasive key for solving the riddle of the universe, and is the only universe product which aspires to interpret the processes by which it has reached its own present level.
All knowledge, then, is biological in the very vital sense that the living organism is the only knowing thing. The knowing process is a life process. Even when knowledge pertains to non-living objects, therefore, it is one-half biological; our most worth-while knowledge—that of ourselves and other organisms—is wholly so. Because all our knowledge is colored by the life process, of which the knowing process is derivative, the study of life underlies every science and its applications, every art and its practice, every philosophy and its interpretations. Biology must be taught in sympathy with the whole joint enterprise of living and of learning.
Adaptation without losing adaptability the goal of life and of education
The most outstanding phenomenon of life is the adaptation of living things to the real and significant conditions of their existence. Furthermore, as these conditions are not static, particularly in the case of humans, organisms must not merely be adapted, but must continue thereafter to be adaptable. Now learning is only a special case under living, and education a special case under life. Its purposes are the purposes of life. It is an artificial and rapid recapitulation for the individual, in method and results, of past life itself. The purpose of education is "adaptation,—with the retention of adaptability." It is to bring the individual into attunement, through his own responses and growth, with all the real factors, external and internal, in his life,—material, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual,—and at the same time leave him plastic.