A Text-Book in General Zoölogy (Classic Reprint)

Thb arrangement, presentation, and selection of the subject-matter in the present text-book have been determined by the experience gained from the labors of ten years in the class room with the grade of students for whom this work is intended. In fact, the text is simply a more orderly discussion of the same subjects in the same sequence that have been presented for ten years to successive classes in elementary zoology. The author, in his work with these students, has attempted to interpret, with much thought and care, the zoological demands of such students according to their average receptivities and practical needs rather than by any preconceived ideas of what constitutes a knowledge of zoology. The aim has been to create an interest in nature, beget an acquaintance with the lives, habits, and activities of animals, train the powers of observation, quicken the judgment, widen the horizon of environment, augment the capabilities for independent thinking, and inculcate an unswerving regard for the truth. The instruction that a potential citizen receives in zoology must give more than a mere acquaintance with animals. If the study of this science does not accomplish the objects enumerated in the foregoing paragraph, it loses its highest value as an educational subject in the curricula of the common schools. That the study of zoology may fulfill its function as a subject of mental discipline and, at the same time, give to that large majority of pupils who become ordinary citizens an acquaintance with animals, the author has been led, from his experience in teaching, to include in a zoological course a goodly amount of natural history and comparative anatomy, a large share of animal ecology, economic zoology and physiology, a moderate amount of classification, embryology, and paleontology, something of the history of zoology, and, through all, a persistent pre
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)