BIOLOGICAL TEACHING IN COLLEGES. 583 



dliScult or not, the training in this direction is so important that it 

 ■warrants the amount of time and labor spent. As a rule, I fear, 

 classes do not see why I give them pine-wood to study. They dislike 

 the work very much, and feel that they have learned comparatively 

 little. If the only object were to know the structure of pine-wood, I 

 could tell them that in a few moments. What they have learned, 

 v>-ithout being aware of it at the time, is the way to examine solid, 

 opaque bodies, a category including by far the greater part of biologi- 

 cal structures. Once done with the pine-wood, progress is always 

 comparatively rapid, and I can only conclude that the classes are 

 strengthened by the work done on the wood. 



I need not occupy your time with any further account of what can 

 best be taught in laboratories to beginners. There is nothing to be 

 said against the plan laid down in the manuals in common use, pro- 

 vided the student is not allowed to follow it mechanically, and look at 

 nothing which is not mentioned in the book. A good instructor is, of 

 coui'se, so well informed about the subject he teaches that he can turn 

 almost any material to account. In my own case, it would be very 

 inconvenient to furnish the same material year after year ; but almost 

 anything can be used to illustrate the typical modes of growth and 

 reproduction in the vegetable kingdom, which is what the beginner 

 needs to know. 



There are, however, a few points to be considered, which bear on 

 the relations of the instructor to the student in college classes. It 

 should be borne in mind that one is not dealing with school-boys, but 

 with young men who, if they are as ignorant of biology as school- 

 boys, have, however, learned other things, and whose development, 

 obtained from studies at school, so far from making them better 

 able, has, in the majority of cases, made them only the less fit to take 

 up biological studies. If they have much to learn, they have also 

 something to unleai-n. They have been taught to rush at a fact as a 

 bull rushes at a red rag — for the purpose of tossing it away im- 

 mediately. The position of the instructor is not an easy one. He is 

 under constant restraint, as he must not tell the student, but must, if 

 possible, make the student tell him, the structure of what lies before 

 him. lie is in the position of a boxing-master, who might easily floor 

 his pupil by a single blow, but who must, by the exertion of great 

 prudence and skill, contrive to let the pupil hit him. By a judicious 

 series of questions, suggestions of possibilities or alternatives, the 

 student may be kept in the right track and yet do all the work of ad- 

 vancing toward the truth himself. Under no circumstances should an 

 instructor let a student, who is a beginner, discover what his own 

 views are about any point to be studied. Although they may be 

 Avretched observers of natural objects, it does not follow that students 

 are not good judges of human nature. "Without any instruction they 

 manage to become adepts in that direction. They often hope, by the 



