THE INVERTEBRATE COURSE. 119 



ginning graduate or advanced undergraduate students, give lab- 

 oratory instruction. I understand the conditions under which 

 this type of instruction has arisen but it is essentially unsound. 



The lectures frequently become a routine re-hashing of bygone 

 compilations on phases of the subject of no particular interest to 

 the lecturer, and often quite unrelated to the laboratory work. 

 This is not true in the fortunate laboratories where the lecturer 

 in the large classes is a brilliant master of his subject matter, the 

 English language and the principles of pedagogy, but it holds for 

 too many courses. It is true that a certain coherence of presen- 

 tation is gained when all of the subject matter passes through one 

 mind, but personal prejudices are likewise transmitted, however 

 unconsciously. Effective teaching is done only when the student 

 is keenly interested and the shifting of lecturers makes naturally 

 for a stimulus of interest. 



In the laboratory work, the advantage of the employment of a 

 group of men all well grounded in the essentials of the subject is 

 obvious. The odd findings of an enterprising student can be 

 capitalized, explained on the spot or their source of explanation 

 suggested, when in the ordinary routine of laboratory work such 

 unknowns must of necessity be disregarded by the undertrained 

 or overworked teacher. I am thoroughly convinced that very sel- 

 dom should instruction be given in college or university by per- 

 sons under the rank of instructor, with its present connotations, 

 and that courses should be limited or teaching staffs increased 

 until this is possible. 



5. The dominant spirit at Woods Hole is research or prepara- 

 tion for research, and this atmosphere does much to color the 

 work of the Invertebrate Course. I am not yet convinced that 

 teaching of undergraduate students stimulates research, or that an 

 instructor who allows himself to be submerged! in research should 

 be trusted in an elementary course ; but I am certain that, other 

 conditions being equal, the best teaching is done by men actively 

 engaged in some form of research and in a laboratory where the 

 research purpose prevails. 



APPENDIX. 



In this appendix are given some more technical directions that 

 we have worked out and that are not readily available lesewhere. 



