54 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



important and interesting forms of life. Explanatory tablets should 

 be attached to them, and catalogues, containing clearly-written expo- 

 sitions of the general significance of the objects exhibited, should be 

 provided. The latter division should contain, packed into a compara- 

 tively small space, the objects of purely scientific interest. For ex- 

 ample, we will say I am an ornithologist. I go to see a collection of 

 birds. It is a positive nuisance to have them stuffed. It is not only 

 sheer waste, but I have to reckon with the ideas of the bird-stuffer, 

 while, if I have the skin, and nobody has interfered with it, I can 

 form my own judgment as to what the bird was like. For ornitho- 

 logical purposes, what is needed is not glass cases full of stuffed birds 

 on perches, but convenient drawers, into each of which a great quan- 

 tity of skins will go. They occupy no great space, and do not require 

 any expenditure beyond their original cost. But, for the purpose of 

 the public, who want to learn, indeed, but do not seek for minute and 

 technical knowledge, the case is different. What one of the general 

 public, walking into a collection of birds, desires to see, is not all the 

 birds that can be got together ; he does not want to compare a hun- 

 dred species of the sparrow-tribe side by side ; but he wishes to know 

 what a bird is, and what are the great modifications of bird-structure; 

 and to be able to get at that knowledge easily. What will best serve 

 his purpose is a comparatively small number of birds, carefully se- 

 lected, and artistically as well as accurately set up, with their differ- 

 ent ages, their nests, their young, their eggs, and their skeletons, side 

 by side, and, in accordance with the admirable plan which is pursued 

 in this museum, a tablet, telling the spectator, in legible characters, 

 what they are and what they mean. For the instruction and recrea- 

 tion of the public, such a typical collection would be of far greater 

 value than any many-acred imitation of Noah's ark. 



Lastly comes the question as to when biological study may best 

 be pursued. I do not see any valid reason why it should not be 

 made, to a certain extent, a part of ordinary school-training. I have 

 long advocated this view, and I am perfectly certain that it can be 

 carried out with ease, and not only with ease, but with very consider- 

 able profit to those who are taught ; but then such instruction must 

 be adapted to the minds and needs of the scholars. They used to 

 have a very odd way of teaching the classical languages when I was 

 a boy. The first task set you was to learn the rules of the Latin 

 grammar in the Latin language that being the language you were 

 going to learn. I thought then that this was an odd way of learning 

 a language, but did not venture to rebel against the judgment of my 

 superiors. Now, perhaps, I am not so modest as I was then, and I 

 allow myself to think it was a very absurd fashion. But it would be 

 no less absurd if we were to set about teaching biology by putting 

 into the hands of boys a series of definitions of the classes and orders 

 of the animal kingdom, and making them repeat them by heart. 



