High School Biology Today: What the Committee of Ten Did Not Anticipate

Abstract

Since the recommendation of biology (or natural history, as it used to be called) in 1893 as part of the high school science curriculum, biology was considered a descriptive subject. In the late 1890s biology consisted of zoology, botany, and physiology. The group that decided on the high school science course configuration was the Committee of Ten. The committee was organized by the National Education Association (NEA) in 1892 to deal with the issue of uniform college entrance requirements. This essay argues that the decision of the Committee of Ten to place biology before chemistry and physics needs to be reexamined. The committee’s recommendations are still being implemented over a hundred years later, and the issue of high school science course sequence is currently being debated. Charles W. Eliot, then president of Harvard University, chaired the Committee of Ten. Eliot had been active in the NEA and was considered a leader in both precollege and higher education. In addition, he was a scientist and considered reasoning power as the central function of the schools (Kleibard, 1995, p. 41). The rest of the committee consisted of key figures from colleges and high schools. There were nine subcommittees each devoted to different academic subjects of which three were responsible for science. One science subcommittee was for physical science (physics, astronomy, and chemistry), another for natural history (botany, zoology, and physiology), and a third for geography (physical geography, geology, and meteorology). The general recommendations of the Committee of Ten regarding natural history (biology) were that: