vi.] OJV THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 1 1 1 



a student must be preternaturally dull and mechanical, 

 if he can takes notes and hear them properly explained, 

 and yet learn nothing. 



What books shall I read? is a question constantly 

 put by the student to the teacher. My reply usually is, 

 " None : write your notes out carefully and fully ; strive 

 to understand them thoroughly ; come to me for the 

 explanation of anything you cannot understand ; and 

 I would rather you did not distract your mind by 

 reading." A properly composed course of lectures 

 ought to contain fully as much matter as a student 

 can assimilate in the time occupied by its delivery ; and 

 the teacher should always recollect that his business is 

 to feed, and not to cram the intellect. Indeed, I believe 

 that a student who gains from a course of lectures 

 the simple habit of concentrating his attention upon 

 a definitely limited series of facts, until they are 

 thoroughly mastered, has made a step of immeasurable 

 importance. 



But, however good lectures may be, and however 

 extensive the course of reading by which they are 

 followed up, they are but accessories to the great in- 

 strument of scientific teaching; — demonstration. If I 

 insist unweariedly, nay fanatically, upon the importance 

 of physical science as an educational agent, it is because 

 the study of any branch of science, if properly conducted, 

 appears to me to fill up a void left by all other means 

 of education. I have the greatest respect and love for 

 literature ; nothing would grieve me more than to see 

 literary training other than a very prominent branch of 

 education : indeed, I wish that real literary discipline 

 were far more attended to than it is ; but I cannot 

 shut my eyes to the fact, that there is a vast difference 

 between men who have had a purely literary, and those 

 who have had a sound scientific, training. 



