ENTOMOLOGY AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 



BY 



WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER 



Entomology is, of course, only one of a number of branches of 

 zoology, which in turn was originally a branch of a larger and more 

 vaguely defined department of human knowledge known as " natural 

 history." As early as the latter part of the eighteenth century, ento- 

 mology had acquired the status of an independent science. This was 

 due, no doubt, to the extraordinary number, variety and beauty of 

 the objects with which it dealt and the ease with which large collec- 

 tions of them could be made, perfectly preserved and compactly 

 stored. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the museum and 

 even the taxonomic technique of the entomologist were nearly as 

 highly developed as at the present time. For this development we 

 are largely indebted to such great pioneer amateurs as Linnaeus, 

 Degeer, Latreille and Fabricius. Although Reaumur and his imme- 

 diate successors emphasized the important bearing of the study of in- 

 sects on human welfare, applied entomology, as a serious branch of 

 the science, has proved to be a much more recent development. 

 Hence even in Europe entomology was very slow in acquiring recog- 

 nition as a fit subject for instruction and research in schools and uni- 

 versities. This statement, however, does not apply to Harvard Uni- 

 versity, because it has had a nearly continuous tradition of teaching 

 and research in the science and, interestingly enough, even in applied 

 entomology, since the end of the eighteenth century. Indeed, since 

 1 795 there has probably been in some department of the University 

 at least one competent entomologist to whom the interested student 

 could turn for encouragement and guidance, and these teachers were 

 not merely competent, but several of them attained lasting fame not 

 only as contributors to entomological science but also as unusually 

 inspiring personalities. The fact that few of them delivered or cared 

 to deliver formal courses of lectures had its advantages, for it enabled 

 them to enter into more intimate and more helpful relations to their 



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