EDITOR'S TABLE. 



3 6 9 



have been established in connection 

 with various of the old European uni- 

 versities ; and although we, in this coun- 

 try, have had chairs, and schools, and 

 museums of natural history, connected 

 with our colleges, or apart from them, 

 yet the provision made for biological 

 study in the organization of the Johns 

 Hopkins University at Baltimore marks 

 a decisive step forward in the educa- 

 tional treatment of this important sub- 

 ject. 



We give our readers the able inau- 

 gural address of Prof. Martin in enter- 

 ing upon his work at Baltimore, and 

 they will be repaid by a careful perusal 

 of it. The statement of principles, pur- 

 poses, and plans, is excellent; and if 

 they are carried out intelligently and 

 perseveringly, as there is no reason to 

 doubt they will be. the results cannot 

 fail to be in a high degree advantageous. 

 The proposed mode of combining origi- 

 nal work with practical teaching is full 

 of promise. Prof. Martin dispels the 

 erroneous and injurious notion, too cur- 

 rent, that original work means great 

 discoveries. He points out how stu- 

 dents of but ordinary capacity may yet 

 do something to extend the boundaries 

 of knowledge, while at the same time 

 the important ends will be secured of 

 mastering the true methods of inquiry, 

 of making solid acquisitions, and of 

 being able to teach from an actual un- 

 derstanding of the subject. What he 

 says of the influence of scientific study, 

 when conducted by proper methods, 

 and in its genuine spirit, in cultivating 

 the love of strict truth, and the mental 

 habit of seeking it as the supreme thing, 

 deserves the most serious attention. 

 How to include a thorough discipline 

 in truth-seeking, in our systems of edu- 

 cation, is the problem of problems yet 

 to be solved. No one who goes to 

 church, or drops into the court-room, 

 or visits our halls of legislation, or reads 

 the newspapers, can fail to see that, 

 with all their learning and volubility, 

 our cultivated men are still very much 



vol. x. 24 



in Pilate's state of mind in regard to 

 truth. It may not be possible for all 

 educated people to get the benefits of 

 biological training as a part of culture, 

 but the most salutary results will come 

 from making scientific training an inte- 

 gral and established part of higher edu- 

 cation. When thorough scientific cult- 

 ure once gets a fair foothold in our 

 colleges and universities, so that its re- 

 sults can be compared with the purely 

 literary training that now prevails, its 

 influence will soon be felt, and we may 

 safely leave the rival methods to the 

 operation of natural selection. Mean- 

 time, our teachers will do well to con- 

 sider carefully Prof. Martin's sugges- 

 tions, and set themselves to the inqui- 

 ry, how far it may be in tbeir power to 

 make application of them, in modified 

 ways, in their own sphere of activity. 



PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE HORSE. 



We publish this month the third 

 lecture of Prof, nuxley, as corrected 

 by himself for The Popular Science 

 Monthly, and accurately illustrated 

 under the supervision of Prof. Marsh, 

 of New Haven. The lecture deals 

 mainly with the genealogy of the horse 

 as traced far back into geological an- 

 tiquity, by the discovery of successive 

 fossil forms in successive strata or de- 

 posits. These forms are so closely re- 

 lated, and exhibit so graduated a series 

 of modifications, as to establish the 

 fact of a genetic and derivative relation 

 from the lowest to the highest. The 

 fossil terms of this series were already 

 so far made out in Europe as to satisfy 

 paleontologists there that the pedigree 

 of the horse is established ; but, by re- 

 cent discoveries on this continent, the 

 ancestral chain has been traced still 

 farther back, so as greatly to strengthen 

 the conclusion reached by foreign in- 

 vestigators. To the three ancestral 

 forms found in Europe, which go back 

 to what the geologists call the Miocene, 

 Prof. Marsh had added two others, car- 



