More than one hundred years ago, the winged words of A. I. Herzen sounded like an alarm throughout the entire world: "Without natural science there is no salvation for modern humanity!" In the light of the latest achievements of the exact sciences, these words not only have not faded, but, on the contrary, have become truly prophetic for both living and future generations. Now - in the period of the swift approach of the "century of biology" - the question of the schoolchildren's education in biology, which was raised so opportunely on the pages of Sovetskaia pedagogika (1964, No. 9) by Corresponding Member of the RSFSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences N. M. Verzilin, is all the more acute. We are witnesses to this unnatural "pattern": the volume of scientific knowledge grows all the time, but the number of hours allotted to the study of natural science not only does not remain stable, but even decreases consistently. It has been reduced to a minimum now, and it is no longer possible to set the matter righ...