Game IV. Play as above except that the bag is passed between the feet. Game V. Children stand in a circle with one in the center. One child throws a bean bag to the child in the center who throws it to another in the circle. This one throws it back to the one in the center. Game VI. Children stand in two lines. Bean bag or ball is tossed from one to another, clapping hands before catching bag. Game VII. Children form circle. One in the center throws up the ball or bag and calls the name of some one in the circle who runs forward and catches it and then takes the leader's place. Ball Games Stand two ten pins up with room enough for the ball to roll between. Children try to roll the ball between the ten pins without knocking them over. Game II. Stand one ten pin in a circle. Children stand or sit around the circle. Each in turn tries to knock the ten pin over by rolling the ball against it. Game III. Children stand in two rows. The leader in each row has a ball. Each in turn tries to throw the ball into a waste basket. Game IV. One player takes his place inside of the circle. The ball is passed around the circle in any direction to any player. If the one in the center touches one in the circle while that one has the ball, the one touched must take the place in the center. If the one in the center catches the ball while it is being passed across the circle, the one who passed the ball must take the center. Game V. One ten pin is stood in the center of the circle. One player enters the circle to guard the pin. The players in the circle try to knock the pin down with the ball. The work of the guard is made difficult by players passing the ball one to the other quickly. The player who knocks the pin down goes in the circle as guard. Game VI. Roll Ball. One player has the ball in the center of the circle. This player tries to get the ball out of the circle by rolling it upon the floor with his feet. The players in the circle try to prevent the ball from going through by the use of their feet. Those in the circle clasp hands. Neighbor, Neighbor The players stand in a line or circle. The leader A clasps his hands under his knees behind, and in this position hops on both feet up to some one in the circle with whom he begins the following conversation: A. "Neighbor, neighbor, how art thee. B. Pretty well, as you can see. A. How's the neighbor next to thee? B. I don't know but I'll go see." B, as he says this, takes the same position as A and hops in the same manner to some one in the line who likewise at the end of the conversation begins hopping. A in the meanwhile keeps on the go to someone else and each player who has started continues hopping until finally there is no one left standing in the line. (To be continued.) Creative Evolution for High School Biology Teachers HENRY FLURY BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY, EASTERN HIGH SCHOOL, W SUMIRHOCHIMNE◆HEN Henri Bergson, the great French philosopher used the term "creative evolution" many persons were in a quandary as to what he meant. But recent revolutionary advances in biologic evolution, are, if not proving his position, at least throwing light upon it. This is not the place to make a resumé of the salient points in that philosophy, and I must assume that all biology teachers have read deeply of that thinker who is basically a biologist. Previous philosophers have been historians, dialecticians, economists, metaphysicians. But Bergson belongs to biology. To miss him is to miss inspiration. Bergson teaches that evolution is not something determinately fixed and immutable, but something modifiable. In the dim past, perhaps, blind chance permitted certain aggregations, certain low forms of life. But with the dawn of intelligence, a new factor of evolution was born. This factor assumes greater importance all the time. Certainly in the case of man, he has been able to modify his environment, and Jennings (Johns Hopkins University) has shown that modification of the environment in the case of protozoa affects the hereditary characters. The protozoa are not able to modify their own environment, but man is. Dr. T. H. Goodspeed (University of California) and Dr. A. R. Olson have been carrying on a series of remarkable experiments with the Nicotiana tabacum or tobacco plant, subjecting the sex cells to X-ray treatment.1 The experiments were carefully controlled and enough generations of plants followed to prove rather definitely that the X-rays not only modified the chromosome arrangements of the sex cells, but 1 The Production of Variation in Nicotiana Species by X-ray Treatment of Sex Cells, by T. H. Goodspeed and A. R. Olson, 1928, in Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., Vol. 14, pp. 66-69. the modifications were visible and inheritable. New species were produced by artificial means. As one of my colleagues expressed it facetiously: "When you get to monkeying with the chromosomes, anything is likely to result." Dr. H. J. Muller, Professor of Zoology in the University of Texas, last July announced that by subjecting the sex cells of the common fruit fly (Drosophila) to the X-rays he had produced a large number of variations in the external appearance of the progeny which were passed on to future generations.2 From a few generations following X-raying of the original flies he obtained most of the variations which it had taken a dozen or more observers watching millions of flies longer than fifteen years to find. Thus is suggested an economy of time, money and labor, a sort of speeding up of the evolutionary processes as it were. Here then are some facts and proofs with which to confound our obtuse, unscientific friends who doubt evolution and who think that phase of biology is some sort of guess work that deals with "a few fossils" in the rocks and a certain logomachy. "Species Made to Order" is the sign we may some day hang out as our shingle on the laboratory door. If this is not enough, refer them to the investigations of Dr. Oscar Riddle of the Carnegie Institute (Washington, D. C.) on the sex ratio of pigeons, studies in metabolism which determine the sex. Dr. Riddle pointed out that a high metabolic rate tended to produce male pigeons and a low rate females. In this connection let me call attention to the fact that X-rays, temperature, etc. are energy modifications, are environmental factors which man is artificially playing with or controlling. The old thesis that you cannot modify the chromosomes or the hereditary characters directly, thus seems to be brought into question, in fact seems to be contradicted, if I read the evidence correctly. 2 The Production of Mutations by X-rays, by H. J. Muller, in Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., Vol. 14, No. 9, pp. 714-26, Sept., 1928. Also see Artificial Transmutation of the Gene, in Science, July 22, 1927. Now we must not jump at conclusions for these experiments are exploratory and suggestive, but they are sign posts and they do point the way that biologic investigation shall proceed in the immediate future. Biology as an experimental science closely connected with biochemistry and biophysics, rather than biology as an arm chair metaphysics or speculation, is what we look forward to. The progressive high school biology teacher who loves his subject must not consider these advances purely from their interesting technical aspects but must visualize their wonderful human possibilities for his students. One of the objects of a course in high school biology is to "create an interest in biology." Of course Mendel's Law and many other facts have got to be laid down as a biologic foundation, for these new revelations must be approached gradually in a logical manner. However, this is pedagogy. Each teacher ultimately works out his own methods if he knows his subject. The best pedagogy of biology I know of is more and more, newer and newer knowledge of what others are doing. The high school teacher has little chance, overworked as he is, to carry on independent investigation, so the best thing he can do is to try to keep informed of new developments. Another fertile field of investigation for the high school biology teacher is that of endocrinology or effects of various glands on personality. The old-fashioned introspective psychology is passe and in its place we have that based partly at least upon far-reaching results of glandular functioning. I like to drop in on my friend Dr. McCloskey in the Bureau of Drug Control, U. S. Department of Agriculture, and let him explain his tests on animals of the new pituitary (anterior and posterior lobes) extract, epinephrine or adrenalin preparation, thyroid extract and other substances, as he works to standardize these and make them known quantities safe for human beings. "Biological Assay" is the way he designates it all. This makes it more concrete than merely reading about it. |