Note 57 — Chapter XV · Experimental Work in Physiology.

“While physiology is one of the biological sciences, it should be clearly recognized that it is not, like botany or zoology, a science of observation and description; but rather, like physics or chemistry, a science of experiment. While the amount of experimental instruction (not involving vivisection or experiment otherwise unsuitable) that may with propriety be given in the high school is neither small nor unimportant, the limitations to such experimental teaching, both as to kind and as to amount, are plainly indicated. “The obvious limitations to experimental work in physiology in the high school, already referred to, make it necessary for the student to acquire much of the desired knowledge from the text-book only. Nevertheless, much may be done by a thoughtful and ingenious teacher to make such knowledge real, by the aid of suitable practical exercises and demonstrations.”—Report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies.