18
Teacher's final method necessarily unique 19
Summary of necessary qualifications 19
Opportunity for adequate preparation 20
Lack of professional course 20
Requirements of Teachers Recommendation in Zoology 21
Courses not adapted for teacher-preparation 22
Professional course the goal 23
Suggested modifications of present courses 24
Course in special methods 25
Practice teaching 27
Bibliography 29

The use of the term _preparation_ herein is intended to indicate
partially the limitation of the problem attempted. The following
discussion will be concerned only with such attributes of the
successful teacher as are the direct result, or at least greatly
enhanced by thorough preparation. A sufficiently comprehensive and
difficult problem remains after still further restriction of the field
so as to include only subject matter and the method of biological
science.

It is scarcely necessary to make the statement that the standards of
preparation and the facilities for meeting these standards have been
enormously improved within the past few years. Evidence of this is
found in the changes recently made in the curricula of and the
requirements for graduation from the California State Teachers
Colleges. Neither is it necessary to say that improvement must
continue. Such problems are evolutionary. Notwithstanding that
requirements for teachers certificates have been raised the country
over, the universities are not generally making very rapid strides in
affording opportunities for better preparation in subject-matter and
special methods. In corroboration, witness the recent criticisms of
the departmental courses in special methods now given in universities
generally (Swift, 1918; Taylor, 1918). The length of time or the
number of units of work required for certification may be increased
but that does not insure a finer _quality_ of preparation.

In attempting to explain the slow pace of improvement in the quality
of preparation for the teaching of science, one becomes involved in a
cycle. Science had its development in the college and university
whence it dif