(10) An elementary understanding of plant and animal and human distribution over the earth, and of the factors that have brought it about.
B. FORMS OF SKILL WHICH WORK IN BIOLOGY SHOULD BRING TO EVERY STUDENT
(2) Biological study gives desirable skills
Skill or ability may be developed in respect to the following activities: seeking and securing information, recording it, interpreting its significance, reaching general conclusions about it, modifying one's conduct under the guidance of these conclusions, and, finally, of appraising the soundness of this conduct in the light of the results of it. All of these are of basic importance in the human task of making conscious adjustments in actual life; and the ability to get facts and to use them is more valuable than to possess the knowledge of facts. Other sciences develop some of these forms of skill better than biology does; nevertheless, we shall find that biology furnishes a remarkably balanced opportunity to develop skills of the various kinds. It presents a great range and variety of opportunity to develop accuracy and skill in raising questions; in observation and the use of precise descriptive terms in recording results of observation; in experimentation; in comparison and classification. It is peculiarly rich in opportunities to gain skill in discriminating between important and unimportant data,—one of the most vital of all the steps in the process of sound reasoning. In practice, a datum may at first sight seem trivial, when in reality it is very significant. Skill in estimating values comes only with experience in estimating values, and in applying these estimates in practice, and in observing and correcting the results of practice.
Finally, skill in adjusting behavior to knowledge is one of the most necessary abilities and most difficult to attain. The study of animal behavior experimentally is at the foundation of much that we know of human psychology and the grounds of human behavior. Even in an elementary class it is quite possible so to study animal responses and the results of response as to give guidance and facility to the individual in interpreting the efficiency of his own responses, and in adding to his own controls. As has been said, practice of some kind is necessary to determine whether our estimate of values is good. Even vicarious experience has educative value.
C. HABITS WHICH MAY BE STRENGTHENED BY THE WORK IN BIOLOGY
(3) Biology may supply adaptive habits
Habits are of course the normal outcome of repeated action. Indeed, skills are in a sense habits from another point of view. Skill, however, looks rather toward the output; habit, toward the mode of functioning by the person by whom the result is attained. We may then develop habits in respect to all the processes and activities mentioned above under the term "skills." The teacher of biology should have definitely in purpose the securing for the student of habits of inquiry, of diligence, of concentration, of accuracy of observation, of seeking and weighing evidence, of detecting the essentials in a mass of facts, of refusing to rest satisfied until a conclusion, the most tenable in the light of all known data, is reached, and of reëxamining conclusions whenever new evidence is offered.
Of course it is impossible to use biology to get habits of right reasoning in students unless we really allow them to reason. If we insist that their work is merely to observe, record, and hold in memory,—as so many of us do in laboratory work,—they may form habits of doing these things, but not necessarily any more than this. Indeed, they may definitely form the habit of doing only these things, failing to use the results in forming for themselves any of the larger conclusions about organisms. Seeing and knowing—without the ability and habit of thinking—is not an uncommon or surprising result of our conventional laboratory work. There is only one way to get the habit of right "following through" in reasoning; this is, always to do the thing. When data are observed or are furnished it is a pedagogical sin on the part of the teacher to allow the student to stop at that point; and equally so to deduce the conclusion for the student, or to allow the writer of the textbook to do so, or at any time to induce the student to accept from another a conclusion which he himself might reach from the data. We have depended too much on our science as a mere observational science,—when as a matter of fact its chief glory is really its opportunity and its incentives to coherent thinking and careful testing of conclusions.
It is inexact enough, if we are entirely honest, to force us to hold our conclusions with an open mind ready to admit new evidence. It is entirely the fault of the teacher if the pupil gets a dogmatic, too-sure habit of mind as the result of his biological studies. And yet, as has been said, it is exact enough to enable us to reach just the same sort of approximations to truth which are possible in our own lives. The study of biology presents a superb opportunity to prepare for living by forming the habits of mind and of life that facilitate right choices in the presence of highly debatable situations. In this it much surpasses the more "exact" sciences. We may conclude, then, by positing the belief that the most important mental habit which human beings can form is that of using and applying consciously the scientific method as outlined above, not merely to biology alone, but to all the issues of personal life as well.