212 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



line of his own research, and must himself unknowingly teach 

 and learn. He finds out gradually of recent work, of technical 

 methods which often happen most pertinent to his needs. 

 He carries on his work quietly and thoroughly ; his works of 

 reference are at hand ; he has the most necessary comforts in 

 working, and is untroubled by the rigid hours of demonstrations 

 or lectures. The station, becomes, in short, a literal emporium, 

 cosmopolitan, bringing together side by side the best workers 

 of many universities, tending, moreover, to make their observa- 

 tions upon the best material sharper by criticism, most fruitful 

 in results. It has often been remarked how large a proportion 

 of recently published researches was dependent, directly or 

 indirectly, upon marine laboratories. 



A brief account of the more important of these stations 

 should not prove lacking in suggestions ; especially as in 

 America the work of the marine laboratory is often imperfectly 

 understood. Its aims have been associated popularly with 

 those of practical fish culture ; and even among the trustees 

 of universities a disposition has often been to regard an annual 

 subscription for a work place in a summer school as among the 

 little needed expenditures of a biological department. So little 

 important has a marine station seemed that the greatest 

 difficulties have ever been encountered to ensure the support 

 of an American table at Naples, — although it was well known 

 how large a number of our investigators were each }ear 

 indebted to foreign courtesy for the privileges of this station. 



General interest in the advancement of pure science has in 

 Europe become a prominent feature of the jxast decade, and 

 there can be no doubt of the importance that has come to be 

 attached to studies bearing upon the problems of life, evolution, 

 heredity. Nor, at the same time, does it appear that matters 

 relating to practical fisheries have in any way lost their interest 

 or support. To these, on the contrary, the rise of pure biology 

 has often given important aids. What has aj^jpeared abstract 

 theory to-day has often been converted into practice to-morrow. 

 And even so ardent a partisan of pure biology as Prof, 

 de Lacaze-Duthiers does not hesitate to urge this, as sufficiently 

 important in general argument, to vindicate the governmental 



