THE STUDY AND TEACHING OF BIOLOGY. 305 



place clear that, in justice both to the student and his teachers, a cer- 

 tain pi*eliminary training must be insisted upon as a preparation for 

 his admission to a biological laboratory ; at least the student must 

 have a fair knowledge of physics and chemistry before he comes 

 there ; and, when he gets there, the thing next to insist upon is, that 

 his teaching be as largely demonstrative and practical as possible, 

 lectures being made of secondary and laboratory-work of primary 

 importance. 



It matters not to me where the student gets this preparatory 

 knowledge : whether here or at some other institution. I believe he 

 ought to acquire it largely at school, as a part of general education ; 

 but, as that seems in the present condition of primary education almost 

 impossible, I shall perhaps best make clear my ideas on the matter 

 if I endeavor to sketch out what I think should be the course gone 

 through by a youth fresh from some high-school or college, where 

 he has got an otherwise sound general education, but without any- 

 thing more than a sham knowledge of physics, and who enters this 

 university with the intention of qualifying himself for biological re- 

 search or teaching hereafter ; and you will, I hope, forgive me if, 

 with the same object of obtaining clearness, I put what I have to 

 say into a somewhat dogmatic form. 



Such a person ought to enter at once upon courses of instruction 

 in experimental physics and chemistry, and devote almost wholly his 

 first year to them ; but during the latter part of that year, say be- 

 tween the spring vacation and the end of the session, he would, in 

 addition, go through a course of instruction in what we may call gen- 

 eral biology. By that I mean a course of instruction in which he 

 would acquire some knowledge of how to use his microscope and how 

 to dissect, and thus gain a certain amount of that special manipula- 

 tive dexterity which he will require afterward. He would also gain 

 a general acquaintance with biological ideas, and with the meaning of 

 the more important technical terms : he would gain, for example, a 

 real, because a practical, knowledge of what we mean by classifica- 

 tion, and of the principles on which classifications are founded; he 

 would learn similarly, with his eyes as well as his ears, what we 

 mean by morphology, and homology, and a host of similar terms ; 

 and he would, in addition, acquire a special acquaintance with the 

 structure and actions of certain selected typical animal and vege- 

 table forms. This, then, would finish the first year's work, unless our 

 student should be ignorant of French and German. If so, he ought 

 also to acquire, what is really very easily got, at least a fair reading 

 knowledge of those languages. 



At the commencement of his second year the student should enter 



for two elementary practical courses, one on comparative anatomy 



and zoology, the other on animal physiology. These courses would, 



I imagine, last about six months each, and they should be taken pari 



VOL. x. 20 



