This essay describes how in the 1890s the Committee of Ten arrived at their recommendations about the organization of the high school biological sciences and seeks to correct the frequently held, but erroneous view that the Committee of Ten was the initiator of the Biology-Chemistry-Physics order of teaching sciences prevalent in high schools today. The essay details the factors underlying the changing views of high school biology from its "natural history" origins, through its "zoology, botany, physiology" disciplinary phase to its eventual integration into a "general biology" course. The simultaneous parallel development of the "Carnegie Unit" for measuring coursework is highlighted as a significant contributor in the evolution of the present day high school biology course. The essay concludes with a discussion of the implications of the grade placement of the sciences for the future development of high school biology.

. Suggested high school sciences from the report of the Committee of Ten
. Summary of Committee of Ten initial science grade recommendations

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Essay

High School Biology Today: What the Committee of Ten

Actually Said

Keith Sheppard* and Dennis M. Robbins

†

*Long Island Group Advancing Science Education, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5233; and

†

Science Department, Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York, NY 10007

Submitted March 5, 2007; Revised May 17, 2007; Accepted May 21, 2007

Monitoring Editor: James Gentile

This essay describes how in the 1890s the Committee of Ten arrived at their recommendations

about the organization of the high school biological sciences and seeks to correct the frequently

held, but erroneous view that the Committee of Ten was the initiator of the Biology-Chemistry-

Physics order of teaching sciences prevalent in high schools today. The essay details the factors

underlying the changing views of high school biology from its "natural history" origins, through

its "zoology, botany, physiology" disciplinary phase to its eventual integration into a "general

biology" course. The simultaneous parallel development of the "Carnegie Unit" for measuring

coursework is highlighted as a significant contributor in the evolution of the present day high

school biology course. The essay concludes with a discussion of the implications of the grade

placement of the sciences for the future development of high school biology.

INTRODUCTION

A recent article in this journal (Va´zquez, 2006) discussed the

role played by the Committee of Ten in establishing the

grade placements of the various sciences in high school,

which ultimately led to biology being taught before chem-

istry and physics. We agree with Va´zquez that the place-

ment of biology before chemistry and physics needs to be

reassessed, though we note that the article contains some

inaccuracies, especially about the recommendations made

by the Committee of Ten. Table 1 in Va´squez (2006, p. 30) is

a summary of the final recommendations for the sciences of

the Committee of Ten, which includes three errors: 1) The

subject of chemistry has been omitted from the table; it

should appear as the 12th grade subject in all the courses of

study; that is, the Committee of Ten proposed that chemistry

be taught last of all the sciences; 2) The classical course of

study contains science subjects (astronomy, meteorology,

geology, anatomy, physiology, and hygiene) that the com-

mittee did not recommend and are not found in the final

report; and 3) The 10th grade options for all but the classical

course of studies should read physics and either botany or

zoology and not "physics, botany, or zoology." The Com-

mittee of Ten recommendation was that students could ei-

ther take zoology or botany, but physics was mandatory. An

edited version of the table showing only the science subjects

is shown in this article as Table 1.

The science subjects included in Table 1, with their grade

placements, represent the Committee of Ten's final recom-

mendations. The grade placements of the biological science

subjects are particularly salient. Notably,

• "Biology" as a course is absent from the table. In 1893,

biology in high schools as a discrete subject did not exist,

though there were distinct courses in botany, zoology,

anatomy, physiology, and hygiene. Often, these biological

subjects were taught in a particular school by different

teachers.

• The recommendations about biological subjects actually

followed the natural history subcommittee's recommen-

dation that either a year of botany or zoology be offered,

but not a combination "biology" course.

• All the biological sciences were omitted from the classical

course of study, due to the presence of Greek. The classical

course was viewed as the most prestigious at the time and

was the course of study most likely to be taken by college-

bound students.

• Neither the full Committee of Ten nor the natural history

subcommittee recommended that biology precede physics

and chemistry. The science subjects in Table 1 clearly

DOI: 10.1187/cbe.07–03– 0013

Address correspondence to: Keith Sheppard (ksheppard@notes.

cc.sunysb.edu) or Dennis M. Robbins (Drobbins@bmcc.cuny.edu).

CBE—Life Sciences Education

Vol. 6, 198–202, Fall 2007

198 © 2007 by The American Society for Cell Biology

show that even if the "Botany or Zoology" option was

considered to be "Biology," it was not placed before phys-

ics. The Committee of Ten actually recommended "Phys-

ics First."

Given the pervasive and erroneous view that the Com-

mittee of Ten created in 1893 the "Biology before Chemistry

and Physics" order of courses (see, e.g., Roy, 2001; Pas-

copella, 2003; Va´zquez, 2006), it is instructional to review

how the Committee of Ten actually arrived at its final rec-

ommendations and especially how they interpreted the rec-

ommendations made by the natural history and other sci-

ence subcommittees.

THE COMMITTEE OF TEN

In 1892, the National Educational Association (NEA) orga-

nized a committee charged with determining what should

be taught in high school so students from different schools

would have a more uniform preparation for college (NEA,

1893). The high school subject offerings at the time were

chaotic, with different schools and colleges having widely

varying requirements and curricula. Charles W. Eliot, who

at this time was the President of Harvard, chaired the Com-

mittee of Ten. As a precursor to the conference and to supply

information for the first meeting, Eliot surveyed 40 promi-

nent schools of the day to determine what subjects were

offered (see Krug, 1964; pp. 47–51). The findings revealed

that in the sample schools a total of 36 different subjects

existed, with 34 of the schools offering some form of natural

history (compared with only 28 schools offering chemistry).

The subject of "natural history" had wide variation in both

the time and number of years allocated to its teaching

among the schools of the survey. For example, Kansas City

High School offered 630 h of natural history over 4 yr,

whereas the Cambridge Latin School in Massachusetts of-

fered natural history for only 48 h over half a year. The Eliot

survey did not differentiate between the various forms of

natural history.

Evidence about how the biological sciences were distrib-

uted in schools at the time has been provided in another

study (Stout, 1921). Stout detailed course offerings and

grade placements of various subjects in the schools in the

North Central Association throughout the late nineteenth

century. The grade placements of the various biological

sciences were erratic. Physiology was most often taught in

the 9th grade. Although botany usually appeared in the 10th

grade, it was also frequently found in 9th and 11th grades.

Zoology courses were distributed throughout all the grades.

There appeared to be no relationship between the grade

placements of zoology and botany, nor was the content of

the two subjects correlated (Stout, 1921; p. 59).

The Committee of Ten organized nine subcommittees,

each devoted to different academic subject areas and which

included three science subcommittees: "6. Physics, Astron-

omy and Chemistry; 7. Natural History (Biology, including

Botany, Zoology and Physiology); . . . 9. Geography (Physi-

cal Geography, Geology and Meteorology)." (NEA, 1893; p.

5). All of these subcommittees were given the same set of

questions to answer: What topics should be studied in high

school? How much curricular time should be allocated to

each subject? How should each subject be taught and as-

sessed? What were the best methods for teaching subjects?

Should the subjects be arranged differently for college-

bound students? Each subcommittee responded to these

questions and compiled a report, which was submitted to

the full committee. The full committee then organized and

modified the subcommittees' recommendations as it com-

piled the final report. One of the major errors made in

writing about the science recommendations of the Commit-

tee of Ten is the confounding of the subcommittee reports

with the final report (Smith and Hall, 1902).

THE NATURAL HISTORY SUBCOMMITTEE

Members of the natural history subcommittee were mainly

college professors and included the noted botanists Charles

Edwin Bessey and John Merle Coulter. They met six times

and produced one of the longer subcommittee reports (NEA,

1893; pp. 138 –161). Detailed descriptions of the work in all

the subbranches of biological sciences (zoology, botany, and

physiology) at each level of elementary and secondary ed-

Table 1. Suggested high school sciences from the report of the Committee of Ten

Year

Classical

Three foreign languages

(one modern)

Latin-scientific

Two foreign languages

(one modern)

Modern languages

Two foreign languages

(both modern)

English

One foreign language

(ancient or modern)

I Physical Geography Physical Geography Physical Geography Physical Geography

II Physics Physics and either

Botany or Zoology

Physics and either

Botany or Zoology

Physics and either

Botany or Zoology

III [Astronomy (1/2 year) and

Meteorology (1/2 year)]

[Astronomy (1/2 year) and

Meteorology (1/2 year)]

[Astronomy (1/2 year) and

Meteorology (1/2 year)]

IV Chemistry Chemistry

[Geology or

Physiography]

(1/2 year) and

[Anatomy, Physiology,

and Hygiene] (1/2 year)

Chemistry

[Geology or Physiography]

(1/2 year) and [Anatomy,

Physiology, and Hygiene]

(1/2 year)

Chemistry

[Geology or

Physiography]

(1/2 year) and [Anatomy,

Physiology, and Hygiene]

(1/2 year)

From the Committee of Ten report (NEA, 1893, pp. 46– 47; modified: nonscience courses were omitted).

What the Committee of Ten Actually Said

Vol. 6, Fall 2007 199

ucation were produced by individual committee members

and were shared with the subcommittee. In addition, the

subcommittee reached almost complete agreement in an-

swering the questions set by the full committee. Their rec-

ommendations included the following:

• That a minimum of 1 yr of either botany or zoology for

high school should be included in the course of studies.

• That a single year of botany or zoology was preferable to

a year of study divided between the two; that is, the

natural history subcommittee recommended that there

should not be a single course known as biology.

• That botany was more appropriate for high school than

zoology, because "botanical materials were more easily

obtained and were more attractive to students" (NEA,

1893, p. 139). Several subcommittee members disagreed

with this recommendation.

• That physiology "may best be pursued in the later years of

the high-school course" (NEA, 1893, p. 138). This was the

only recommendation the natural history subcommittee

made about grade placement of any of the subdisciplines.

The natural history subcommittee made no recommenda-

tion about the grade placement of botany or zoology. The

geography subcommittee similarly made no recommenda-

tions about the grade placements for their various subjects

(geology, meteorology, geography, and physiography). The

only recommendations about specific science grade place-

ments were made in the physical science subcommittee. In

this subcommittee, there was disagreement about the place-

ment of physics. The majority of the subcommittee voted to

place physics in the senior year, with chemistry in the 11th

grade, whereas a minority suggested the reverse placement.

In both cases, however, it was the consensus that physics

and chemistry should be taught in the last 2 yr of high school

(NEA, 1893).

When all the science subcommittees met as a group, they

recommended that 25% of all curricular time in high school

be devoted to the sciences and promoted the use of laboratory

work, but they did not discuss or make any recommendations

about the grade placement of the individual sciences.

Some insight into the thinking of the natural history sub-

committee can be found from Coulter's writings after the

Committee of Ten meetings (Coulter, 1893, 1896). Coulter

thought that biological subjects should be taught after the

physical sciences in the schools: ". . . to have even an ele-

mentary appreciation of plants or animals in their life activ-

ities, one must bring to the study at least some elementary

conception of the general principles of chemistry and phys-

ics . . . I should certainly place the biological subjects late in

the course." (Coulter, 1896, p. 69).

THE FINAL REPORT IS COMPILED

The recommendations from the subcommittees for all sub-

jects were compiled by the full Committee of Ten. They

noted that collectively the subcommittees had allocated

more instructional time than students could follow in certain

grades (NEA, 1893, pp. 38–39). To accommodate all the

options, the full committee made several initial decisions

about the grade placements of the sciences (see Table 2).

They followed the physical science subcommittee's recom-

mendation and placed physics and chemistry in the junior

and senior years, respectively. Applied geography was

placed in the 9th grade, and the option of "botany or zool-

ogy" was placed in the 10th grade, so that there would be a

science course in every year. These grade placements were

arbitrary, and the committee gave no reason for placing

"botany or zoology" in the 10th grade. The full committee

did follow the natural history subcommittee's recommenda-

tion about physiology and placed it in the 12th grade with

anatomy and hygiene.

In organizing the subjects to be taught in each grade, the

committee placed physics in the 11th grade so that it "may

precede meteorology and physiography" (p. 42). In their

final recommendations (see Table 1) the committee further

moved physics to the 10th grade in all their proposed

courses of study (i.e., they placed physics first). Their ratio-

nale for this was that because many students at the time did

not complete high school, they wished that in the first 2 yr,

studies should be selected to be as broad and representative

as possible and so "natural history being represented by

physical geography, the Committee wished physics to rep-

resent the inorganic sciences of precision" (NEA, 1893, p.

48). To accommodate the study of Greek, the "botany or

zoology" option was removed from the classical course of

studies along with all other science half-year courses.

IMPACT OF THE COMMITTEE OF TEN

Although the Committee of Ten was particularly influential

in the history of U.S. education (see e.g., Atkin and Black,

2007), its recommendations were suggestive rather than

binding on high schools. Schools, with a multitude of local

concerns, often had to make pragmatic decisions about cur-

ricular issues. Most notably, schools around the turn of the

twentieth century were generally small and found it difficult

to offer and staff a variety of the different science classes.

The impact that the Committee of Ten recommendations

had on the practice in schools was investigated 10 yr after it

originally met (Dexter, 1906). The Dexter study reported that

in 1906 only 12% of schools actually offered 1-yr courses in

botany and zoology, and there was no mention of "general

biology" courses. Further, physiology, when offered in

schools, was invariably found in the earlier grades. So the

Committee of Ten seems to have had little actual impact on

the schools. The subsequent development of high school

biology was the result of a number of other factors.

Table 2. Summary of Committee of Ten initial science grade

recommendations

Year Courses

First (9th grade) Applied Geography

Second (10th grade) Botany or Zoology

Third (11th grade) Physics [Astronomy and Meteorology]

Fourth (12th grade) Chemistry [Anatomy and Physiology and

Hygiene] [Geology or Physiography]

From the Committee of Ten report (NEA, 1893, p. 41; showing only

science subjects).

K. Sheppard and D. M. Robbins

CBE—Life Sciences Education200

At the time of the Committee of Ten, a "mental discipline"

view of learning prevailed in education. School subjects

were valued according to their disciplinary value, measured

by how well they developed "mental power" in the learner.

Essentially the mind was considered to be a muscle that

could be trained by judicious mental exercise. The earlier

"natural history" view of biology, with its "study nature not

books" approach was replaced by a disciplinary view of

science subjects. Botany and zoology fit well into this disci-

plinary model because the content of the courses was tech-

nical and required laboratory work that was exacting and

precise. Indeed, Coulter (1893) argued that physiology

should not even be considered as a natural history subject,

because of its "informational" rather than "disciplinary"

nature. When the College Entrance Examination Board was

established in 1901, the disciplinary view of subjects was

reflected in the subjects that it tested. In 1902 a botany exam

was introduced, in 1907 zoology was added, and it was not

until 1913 that the first "biology" exam was offered. The

disciplinary perspective highlighted the college domination

of the science subjects and was unfortunately inappropriate

for their target student population. Between 1900 and the

1920, the mental discipline philosophy of learning was

heavily criticized and became widely rejected.

Another educational issue that directly impacted the de-

velopment of biology also appeared at this time. This was

the successful attempt to standardize high school curricula

through the introduction of an academic credit system. The

Committee on College Entrance Requirements (CCER),

which met between 1895 and 1899, was charged with imple-

menting the Committee of Ten recommendations (NEA,

1899). A major outcome of the CCER report was the intro-

duction of the idea of a "national unit" for measuring and

comparing high school coursework. The national unit,

through the actions of the Carnegie Foundation for the Ad-

vancement of Teaching in 1909, would become known as the

"Carnegie Unit," and it is still in universal use today (Tomp-

kins and Gaumnitz, 1954). The national unit or Carnegie

Unit standardized high school courses as 1-yr classes meet-

ing approximately once per day and was a particularly

salient administrative development for biology.

Other factors affecting the development of biology in-

cluded the major demographic changes that were occurring

in the country around this time. There was a large increase

in immigration, a shift in the population away from rural to

urban settings, and major changes in child labor laws, all of

which contributed to a dramatic rise in enrollment in high

schools. There was an approximate doubling of the high

school population every 10 years from 1890 to 1930 (Na-

tional Center for Educational Statistics, 2003). It was into this

environment that "biology" became integrated from its sub-

disciplines (see e.g., Rosen, 1959; Hurd, 1961; Mayer, 1986;

Rosenthal and Bybee, 1988; Pauly, 1991; Sheppard and

Robbins, 2006).

In establishing the new "biology," teachers and adminis-

trators were reflecting the progressive educational views of

the time that favored more general rather than specialized

forms of education. There was a rejection of the college

dominance of the biological sciences as being abstract and

impractical (Rosen, 1959; Hurd, 1961; Rosenthal and Bybee,

1988). High school teachers wrote the new biology texts, and

the biology syllabi were adapted to the developmental needs

of students who would be in the earlier grades. The content

of the course was more practical, was related to everyday

life, and included such topics as hygiene, sanitation, and

food preparation. This was reflected in the titles of the texts,

for example, A Civic Biology (Hunter, 1914) and Biology of

Home and Community (Trafton, 1923). These advances re-

flected the growing belief that education should be prepa-

ration for life not just preparation for college.

From an administrative perspective a general biology

course was especially appealing. The 1-yr course fit well

with the Carnegie Unit system for administering high school

courses. By reducing the number of sciences that were of-

fered, it helped to relieve the congested high school curric-

ulum, made scheduling easier, and made for more efficient

use of both time and teachers, and as a single subject biology

was more likely to be viewed as an equal to the already

well-established physics and chemistry courses.

As such, the "general biology" course that evolved be-

tween 1900 and 1920 was particularly well adapted to the

education environment of the early twentieth century, and it

was dramatically successful. Enrollment in biology grew

almost exponentially, so that by 1930 its enrollment had

eclipsed that of both chemistry and physics combined (Shep-

pard and Robbins, 2003). In the face of this competition,

botany and zoology as school subjects almost completely

disappeared.

The position of biology early in the high school course of

studies was thus fixed at a time when its content and meth-

ods were vastly different from today. Nobody foresaw the

developments that would occur in biology over the next 75

years, so that today the question of the grade placement of

biology relative to the other sciences has become an impor-

tant concern (Biological Sciences Curriculum Study Staff,

2004). If the Committee of Ten were to reconvene to answer

the same questions today, there would be no "natural his-

tory" subcommittee representing botany, zoology, and

physiology, but instead, biochemistry, bioinformatics, ecol-

ogy, genetics, etc. would be the new domains. Indeed, it

would be difficult to adequately represent all areas of mod-

ern biology with just 10 representatives. We would suggest

that a modern day Committee of Ten would recognize the

need for "biology" to adapt to its new educational environ-

ment and would recommend resequencing high school bi-

ology so that it is studied after introductory physics and

chemistry. Also, as an absolute minimum, introductory high

school biology should be a 2-yr course—something that the

original Committee of Ten did not nor could not anticipate.

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man, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates, 781–806.

Biological Sciences Curriculum Study Staff (BSCS) (2004). Biology

and the Physics First Curriculum: A Symposium Celebrating BSCS's

45th Anniversary, Colorado Springs, CO: BSCS.

Coulter, J. M. (1893). Biology in secondary schools. Sch. Rev. 1,

141–151.

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Dexter, E. G. (1906). Ten years' influence of the report of the com-

mittee of ten. Sch. Rev. 14, 254–269.

Hunter, G. W. (1914). A Civic Biology, New York: American Book

Company.

Hurd, P. D. (1961). Biological Education in American Secondary

Schools 1890–1960, Baltimore, MD: Waverly Press.

Krug, E. A. (1964). The Shaping of the American High School,

1880–1920, Vol. 1, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Mayer, W. V. (1986). Biology education in the United States during

the twentieth century. Q. Rev. Biol. 61, 481–507.

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tion Statistics: Table 36. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing

Office.

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mittee on Secondary School Studies, Washington, DC: Government

Printing Office (commonly known as The Committee of Ten

Report).

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ments, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

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39(3), 44– 49.

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York City, 1900–1925. Isis 82, 662– 688.

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Math. 59, 473–489.

Rosenthal, D. B., and Bybee, R. W. (1988). High school biology: the

early years. Am. Biol. Teach. 50, 345–347.

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the grade placement of high school biology. Am. Biol. Teach. 68,

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K. Sheppard and D. M. Robbins

CBE—Life Sciences Education202

... This focus on plant and insect identification could also address the disappearance of these subjects in the modern biology secondary school curriculum (Sheppard and Robbins 2007). One hundred years ago botany and zoology were core components of high school biology curriculum, but as new biological discoveries emerged, they were dropped in favor of a greater human focus (Rosenthal and Bybee 1988;Sheppard and Robbins 2007). ...

... This focus on plant and insect identification could also address the disappearance of these subjects in the modern biology secondary school curriculum (Sheppard and Robbins 2007). One hundred years ago botany and zoology were core components of high school biology curriculum, but as new biological discoveries emerged, they were dropped in favor of a greater human focus (Rosenthal and Bybee 1988;Sheppard and Robbins 2007). Even today, the number of pages in biology textbooks devoted to plants continues to diminish (Hershey 2002) At the same time that children are learning less about the natural history of local plants and animals in schools, fewer children are venturing outside to discover nature on their own (Louv 2005). ...

Courses that focus on local flora and fauna are no longer included in biology curricula; therefore most K-12 teachers lack the expertise to teach their students about local biodiversity. When teachers are unable to recognize the plants and animals in their own surroundings, threats to the environment and biodiversity will inevitably remain abstractions to students. In the summer of 2011, a five-day plant and insect biodiversity workshop engaging thirteen pre-service and in-service urban public school teachers and five undergraduate biology teaching assistants was held at a forest field station outside of New York City. The goals were to develop an appreciation of local plant and insect diversity amongst practicing and pre-service teachers, and prepare them to use outdoor experiences to teach urban students. Results from pre- and post-tests and surveys indicate that teachers made significant gains in their understanding of biodiversity, with the largest gains made on plant identification skills. Post-surveys, distributed six months following workshop completion, indicate that half of the in-service teachers used these resources in their classrooms. Responses also highlighted important intangible benefits of the workshop, and indicated that some participants used their new plant identification skills to identify or observe the street trees they pass as part of their daily routine.

  • Jeremy Peacock
  • Wayne Melville

Working from a historical perspective indicates that there are four periods over the last 170 years through which the role of the science chair has developed. This evolution has progressed from the administrative need to implement the agenda of the newly professionalised science of the nineteenth century, to a greater emphasis on the role of the chair as an instructional leader in the latter half of the twentieth century. The growing complexity of the role has also resulted in chairs becoming conflicted between their roles as specialist teachers and middle-level school administrators. From the earliest days of school science departments, the role of the chair has been heavily invested in two main areas. The first of these is a fealty to the discipline. The second is the need to attempt to balance the competing demands of the discipline, science education and educational reforms. Given the ongoing pressure for the reform of science education, the evolution of the role highlights the potential need for chairs to become actively engaged in maintaining links to the academic, professional, and school communities in which they serve.

  • Denise A. Allen

Little empirical evidence suggested that independent reading abilities of students enrolled in biology predicted their performance on the Biology I Graduation End-of-Course Assessment (ECA). An archival study was conducted at one Indiana urban public high school in Indianapolis, Indiana, by examining existing educational assessment data to test whether a relationship between reading proficiency and student performance on the Biology I ECA existed. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was r = 0.712 (P < 0.01). A strong positive relationship between Biology I ECA and Lexile reading scores accounted for 50.7% of the variance. The results suggested that any measure to increase reading levels would increase standardized biology assessment scores.

  • William V. Mayer

The problems facing science education in general and biological education in particular in the twentieth century have been carefully scrutinized and delineated. The lack of response to published studies and reports is primarily due to the absence of a mechanism to activate change and to overcome the inertia of an educational bureaucracy in which teacher preparation, textbooks, examinations, and, indeed, all facets of the system are mutually reinforcing. Critical recommendations of the past are cited, culminating in the only national activist educational project ever undertaken in the United States-the curriculum development movement of the 1950s and 1960s. This movement is viewed from the 25-year personal involvement of the author, and its successes and failures are delineated. About every 20 years the public seems to become exercised about the status of public education, but until a mechanism exists to which the educational system is responsive, efforts at educational reform are largely local, ad hoc, and ephemeral. Education is a problem of national concern, but in the United States the tradition of local control causes national involvement to be viewed as a threat. The curriculum development movement was an enterprise that introduced a pattern of hybrid vigor into the system while, in a apparently contradictory fashion, local control has fostered both parochialism and stasis that have resulted in an uncoordinated patchwork of educational objectives and varying degrees of success in their achievement. The author urges a national coordination of educational goals and the implementation of an acceptable mechanism for inducing change within the present system.