IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCP:S. 105 



college course ? Has it any claim to rank along with structural zoology as 

 u means wliereby the best educational results may be attained? 



The answer to these questions depends very largely, it seems to me, upon 

 the college or university under consideration. In those institutions where 

 well equipped biological laboratories are at the disposal of students, and 

 the endowment is such as to make successful investigations in morphology 

 possible, the study of comparative anatomy, histology and embryology ofters 

 unsurpassed attractions to the student and insures earnest and faithful work 

 of the very highest educational value, unless the instructor is painfully lack- 

 ing in the ability to use tiie means at his command. 



In institutions possessing both laboratories and museums, both structural 

 and systematic work can be undei'taken. In this case, if it is considered 

 best to divide the zoology between two chairs, two courses may be pursued. 



1st. The systematic zoology may be regarded as supplementary to the 

 .structural, which excludes all students from systematic work who are unable 

 or unwilling to devote two yeax's to zoology. 



'2d. The structural and systematic work may be offered as two indepen- 

 dent and coordinate courses, in which case each professor should be free 

 to give so much instruction in the department of the other as may be 

 required for a satisfactory understanding of the work in hand. 



But there is a large class of colleges scattered over our State, where well 

 equipped laboratories can not for the present at least, be afforded, and 

 where the duties devolving upon the "Professor of Natural Sciences" are 

 too manifold to admit of his taking the time necessary for good laboratoiy 

 work even if the equipment were provided. In these colleges, it seems to 

 me, systematic zoology offers some superior advantages if wisely taught. 



One cogent argument in its favor is that it need not demand any great 

 amount of equipment to commence with. The compound microscopes and 

 their adjuncts, which usually require the bulk of the outlay in laboratory 

 equipment, can be dispensed with. Dissecting microscopes, or even good 

 coddingtou lenses with a few inexpensive accessions will suffice for the work. 

 Considerable tield work is indispensable on the part of both instructor and 

 students. But field work is the very best way to learn zoology and is withal 

 the most attractive and physically beneficial. 



Text books can and should be eschewed as text books, and their place 

 taken by some reliable manual, as Jordan's. 



The time for going over the whole animal kingdom in a single term has 

 long since passed. It can never result in anything but "going over it" in a 

 very literal sense, without going into it at any point. Almost every teacher 

 who can be said, in any true sense, to be prepared to teach zoology has 

 made a more or less special study of some definite group of animals. That 

 means that he knows a great deal more about some particular kinds of 

 animals than of any others. Now, it is manifestly his wisest course to dwell 

 most upon that which he knows the most about. 



Let us suppose, for instance, that the "Professor of Natural Science" is 

 an amatuer ornithologist. Birds, then, are obviously the animals whicii he 

 should teach about. He, in all probability, has several of the standard 

 works on ornithology such as Cones' "Key,"Ridgway's "Manual, "and perhaps 

 Baird, Brewer and Ridgway's "History of N. A. Birds." It is likely, too, that 

 he has a more or less extensive cabinet of bird skias. If not he can put his 



