1896. PROFESSOR HUXLEY. 163 



crown." The same subject served for another epigram. At a meeting 

 of examiners we were talking of the difficulty students experienced in 

 remembering whether the mitral valve was on the left side or the 

 right. Huxley told us that when he was a student he always remem- 

 bered by saying to himself " a bishop's never in the right." 



In the promotion of the practical teaching of biology, Huxley's 

 services can hardly be over-estimated. Botanists had always been in 

 the habit of distributing flowers to their students, which they could 

 dissect or not as they chose ; animal histology was taught in many 

 colleges under the name of practical physiology ; and at Oxford an 

 excellent system of zoological work had been established by the late 

 Professor Rolleston. But the biological laboratory, as it is now 

 understood, may be said to date from about 1870, when Huxley, with 

 the co-operation of Professors Foster, Rutherford, Lankester, Martin, 

 and others, held short summer classes for science teachers at South 

 Kensington, the daily work consisting of an hour's lecture followed by 

 four hours' laboratory work in which the students verified for them- 

 selves facts which they had hitherto heard about and taught to their 

 unfortunate pupils from books alone. The naive astonishment and 

 delight of the more intelligent among them was sometimes almost 

 pathetic. One clergyman, who had for years conducted classes in 

 physiology under the Science and Art Department, was shown a drop 

 of his own blood under the microscope. " Dear me ! " he exclaimed ; 

 " it's just like the picture in Huxley's ' Physiology.' " 



In 1872, when the biological department of the Royal School of 

 Mines was transferred to South Kensington, the same method was 

 adopted as part of the regular curriculum of the school, and from 

 that time the " teaching " of zoology by lectures alone became an 

 anachronism. 



The system of practical teaching thus inaugurated has not always 

 been happy in its continuators, and the excellent manual in which it 

 is partly embodied — Huxley and Martin's " Practical Biology " — has 

 had something to do with certain misconceptions as to its nature. 

 Huxley's method of teaching was based upon the personal examination 

 by the student of certain " types " of animals and plants selected 

 with a view of illustrating the various groups. But, in his lectures, 

 these types were not treated as the isolated things they necessarily 

 appear in a laboratory manual or an examination syllabus ; each, on 

 the contrary, took its proper place as an example of a particular 

 grade of structure, and no student of ordinary intelligence could fail 

 to see that the types were valuable, not for themselves, but simply as 

 marking, so to speak, the chapters of a connected narrative. More- 

 over, in addition to the types, a good deal of work of a more general 

 character was done. Thus, while we owe to Huxley more than to- 

 anyone else the modern system of teaching biology, he is by no 

 means responsible for the somewhat arid and mechanical aspect it 

 has assumed in certain quarters. 



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