ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY. 671 



arithmetician who has not got beyond the rule of three, is not a per- 

 son of brilliant acquirements ; but the difference between such a mem- 

 ber of society and one who cannot either read, write, or cipher, is 

 almost inexpressible; and no one nowadays doubts the value of in- 

 struction, even if it goes no further. 



The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my 

 mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and genuine, I 

 do not believe that it is other than a very valuable possession, how- 

 ever infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge 

 is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of dan- 

 ger ? 



If William Harvey's life-long labors had revealed to him a tenth 

 part of what may be made sound and real knowledge to our boys and 

 girls, he would not only have been what he was, the greatest physi- 

 ologist of his age, but he would have loomed upon the seventeenth 

 century as a sort of intellectual portent. Our little knowledge would 

 have been to him a great, astounding, unlooked-for vision of scientific 

 truth. 



I really see no hai-m which can come of giving our children a little 

 knowledge of physiology. But then, as I have said, the instruction 

 must be real, based upon observation, eked out by good explanatory 

 diagrams and models, and conveyed by a teacher whose knowledge 

 has been acquired by study of the facts, and not the mere catechismal 

 parrot-work which too often usurps the place of elementary teaching. 



It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to give a formal contradiction to 

 the silly fiction, which is assiduously circulated by fanatics who not 

 only ought to know, but do know, that their assertions are untrue, 

 that I have advocated the introduction of that experimental discipline 

 which is absolutely indispensable to the professed physiologist, into 

 elementai'y teaching. 



But wliile I should object to any experimentation which can justly 

 be called painful, for the purpose of elementary instruction, and while, 

 as a member of a late Royal Commission, I gladly did my best to 

 prevent the infliction of needless pain for any purpose, I think it is my 

 duty to take this opportunity of expressing my regret at a condition 

 of the law which permits a boy to troll for pike, or set lines, with live- 

 frog bait, for idle amusement, and, at the same time, lays the teacher 

 of that boy open to the penalty of fine and imprisonment if he uses 

 the same animal for the purpose of exhibiting one of the most beauti- 

 ful and instructive of physiological spectacles, the circulation in the 

 web of the foot. No one could undertake to afiirm that a frog is not 

 inconvenienced by being wrapped up in a wet rag, and having his 

 toes tied out ; and it cannot be denied that inconvenience is a sort of 

 pain. But you must not inflict the least pain on a vertebrated animal 

 for scientific purposes (though you may do a good deal in that v/ay 

 for gain or for sport) without due license of the Secretary of State for 



