Distinguished Aberdare scientist tells grammar girls

Biology biggest subject in future

IT HELPS US TO UNDERSTAND
LIFE AND HUMAN PROBLEMS

T hat biology should play a primary part in the education of every citizen was urged by Dr. Gwendolen Rees, senior lecturer at the University College, Aberystwyth, when she addressed pupils of the Aberdare County Grammar School for Girls, at their distribution of certificates ceremony, held at the Coliseum on Thursday afternoon.

Dr. Rees herself an old girl of the school, said a knowledge of biology was necessary to understand one’s place in the universe and oneself as a product of that evolution. There could be no true interest in statecraft, either in the affairs of our nation or in world affairs, if one had not some knowledge of biology.

Our present problems of national and international crises needed the utmost understanding if they were to be solved, and they could not be solved without a knowledge of biology. The racial problem was one of the most difficult and the biological aspects of that problem had to be comprehended if we were to have a peaceful future. There could be no true education without instruction in the phenomena of life and the laws which governed it.

The practical aspects of biology were legion. They affected all branches of agriculture and the whole of medical science and disease, and they had, therefore, done much of practical value to man. But there was still great scope for the growth of this knowledge, for instance, in the matter of hygiene.

Many young people, she said, had a passion for collecting things, and this could be an excellent thing if directed towards animals and plants.

WORLD CHANGED

The world had changed beyond recognition in the last generation or two, due to the development of physical sciences, but the nature of mankind had not been changed by them. The great scientific changes in the future would be of biological development. The problems of the coming century would be increasingly biological, and much deeper in their intensity and far more extensive in their range than those of the physical sciences.

There could be no true appreciation of the beauty of life without a knowledge of biology. History was scarcely intelligible without the idea of evolution, and politics were not understandable without history.

Biology was closely related to the physical sciences and mathematics, said Dr. Rees. Before one could go far in biology, one had to know something of the physical and chemistry sides of science. Therefore, biology was a part of science and science might be defined as a scientific body of knowledge, and man’s use of that knowledge was to understand and control environment. Environment had become gradually more important.

The curiosity of the young should be encouraged and carried into all aspects of life. One should learn that scientific studies had gone far in dealing with social problems. At present we could look into a world where we could expect very little except the progress of science.

There was an implication that the culture of a society was in its literature, music and art. But to the scientist the pursuit of science had an intellectual and aesthetic value which could be compared with all the other arts. The intellectual processes of reasoning gave the scientist the same pleasure as the artist derived from looking at the line and colour of a beautiful painting, or as a musician from listening to a symphony.

The scientist in general took a wide interest in the affairs of the arts, but the opposite was not always true. If this were realised it would form the foundation for a better understanding by one another of the men of science and the men of history, literature and art.

This interest in the arts and sciences was found in the Italian Renaissance of which Leonardo da Vinci was probably the pinnacle. There was a great interest then in beauty and art, which was allied with a burning scientific curiosity.

Doctor Rees told the girls not to worry if they did not do exceptionally well at school, for Darwin, Newton and Einstein, she said, were very slow at school and at college. They developed when they worked on their own. She urged the girls to cultivate the human virtues which would lead to a better management of world affairs and to peace in the world.

She said she would like to thank the staff of the school for the help and encouragement they had given her, for it was at this school that her career began to take shape. The school was one of the pioneers in adopting zoology, her subject, on the curriculum. It was in 1921 that zoology first became a Higher School Certificate subject in this country, and there were only five entrants, some of whom were from the Aberdare Girls’ Grammar School.

VITAL SECOND YEAR

In her introductory speech, the chairman, Alderman Mrs. F. Rose Davies, C.B.E., J.P., said she thought the parents should take great interest in the girls during their second year at the school, to see whether the child was happy and settled, because it was the most important year in the school life of a child.

Introducing Doctor Rees, Mrs Davies said she was a pupil who had brought great distinction to Aberdare, the school and to Wales generally. She hoped that Dr. Rees would prove an example to the girls that day.

Certificates were distributed by Doctor Rees.

During the afternoon the school choir sang “The Seekers” (George Dyson), “Pelydir y Lloer” (Mansel Thomas), “Old Mother Hubbard” (Victor Hely-Hutchinson), and “Rolling Down to Rio” (Edward German). The Madrigal Choir sang “The Silver Swan” (Orlando Gibbons) and “All Creatures Now” (John Bennett).

A vote of thanks to Dr. Rees and the chairman was proposed by head girl, Marilyn Buxton Davies.