EDITORIAL 



311 



EDITORIAL 



Of Age as Agassiz Association Editor. 



It was twenty-one years ago on Jan- 

 ary first that "The Observer," published 

 at Portland, Connecticut, and edited by 

 the present editor of The Guide to 

 Nature, became the official organ of 

 The Agassiz Association. That maga- 

 zine was discontinued after the issue for 

 August, 1897. For three years longer, 

 the A A interests continued to be cared 

 for by the present editor in "Popular 

 Science"' of New York City, then under 

 his editorship. For nearly seven years 

 The Guide to Nature has been the 

 official organ of the AA. The affairs of 

 the AA have for twenty-one years been 

 editorially mostly under the care of the 

 present President of the AA and editor 

 of The Guide to Nature. 



In an extended announcement by the 

 former President, Mr. Harlan H. Bal- 

 lard, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, made just 

 twenty-one years ago, Mr. Ballard de- 

 tails his experience in studying nature 

 twenty years before that time. The es- 

 tablishment of the AA forty years ago 

 was an important change for the better in 

 the. study of nature. He said : 



"Twenty years ago the writer obtained 

 'Honorable mention' in the department 

 of Natural Science in a prominent New 

 England college without knowing any- 

 thing about natural science. He had 

 completed his course in chemistry with- 

 out handling a single chemical re-agent, 

 and without touching a single piece of 

 apparatus ; he had passed his examina- 

 tions in physics without having perform- 

 ed a single experiment ; he had taken 

 high rank in botany without observing 

 the germination of a single seed ; he had 

 been 'passed' in mineralogy without even 

 seeing, much less making, a single deter- 

 mination ; he had finished zoology with- 

 out witnessing a dissection, and without 

 learning of the existence of such a 

 branch of science as biology ; and he had 

 mastered (?) astronomy without once 

 looking through a telescope. During the 

 entire college course he never saw a mi- 

 croscope in. any class-room. 



"The only approach to right methods 



of instruction in science, appeared in the 

 first six or eight lessons in zoology, when 

 a half bushel of dried sea-urchins and 

 star-fish was distributed among the class, 

 to be examined through a pocket lens 

 preparatory to a brief lecture on their 

 homologies; and in the beginning of 

 botany, when each student was desired 

 to collect and 'analyze' one hundred 

 plants. 



"After the examination of the dried 

 sea-creatures was ended, we reverted to 

 the text-book, and daily committed to^ 

 memory four pages of definitions, and 

 crude descriptions of 'typical species.' 



"Such was the scientific education of 

 our average college twenty years ago. 



"Better work is done to-day in every 

 well ordered grammar school. 



"Deeply impressed by the inefficiency 

 of book teaching as then practiced, the 

 writer organized in 1875, a little school 

 society of natural science. It was very 

 simple and crude, but it had for its object 

 the development of personal observation 

 on the part of each member. 



"It was the outcome of a belief that 

 education should include some practical 

 knowledge of our natural environment. 

 The society was directly in line with 

 suggestions made by Professor Louis 

 Agassiz that there would be great advan- 

 tage in the establishment of local so- 

 cieties for the study of local phenom- 

 ena." 



The death of Dr. August Weismann r 

 on November 6 at the age of eighty 

 years, removes one of the foremost fig- 

 ures of the scientific world. Professor 

 of zoology at Freiburg for nearly fifty 

 years, he was the special disciple and 

 successor of Darwin, and the leader 

 of the so-called Neo-Darwinian school 

 of naturalists. His scientific fame will 

 rest largely on his truly epoch-making 

 contributions to the theory of hered- 

 ity ; but the out-of-door observer will 

 probably remember him longest for his 

 studies in seasonal differences in. the 

 patterns of butterflies' wings. 



