BIOLOGY IN EDUCATION. 3 



maintain, should we endeavour to differentiate the nature and 

 extent of biological training as education advances towards 

 perfection. The study and recognition of Biology by educa- 

 tionists, is at present in a non-specialised condition. Its 

 general utility is an admitted, because an apparent, fact; 

 but I should wish with all honesty of purpose to press home 

 the further value and higher application of the science, as 

 entitling it to a definite place in the specialisation of the 

 functions and subjects of the educational reformer. 



By the term Biology, we mean to collectively indicate 

 those branches of science, commonly known as Botany and 

 Zoology, which deal with living beings, or with the great 

 organic series of objects which the world presents to our 

 view. My subject naturally divides itself into a threefold 

 consideration of the place, method, and advantages of this 

 study; and it is needful for the appreciation of all three 

 points that the study itself should in the first instance be 

 clearly defined. 



It may thus be found to involve three, if not four, dis- 

 tinct yet connected branches of inquiry; which, as the 

 result of their investigations, place us in possession of full 

 information regarding any individual organism or series. 

 Biology has thus firstly a Morphological side or aspect, 

 through which we investigate the structure of living things ; 

 and Morphology in its turn includes not only anatomy, or 

 the department of science investigating the structure of the 

 fully-formed being, but the study of development^ and that of 

 taxonomy or classification also. Through Morphology we, 

 in fact, become acquainted with every aspect of the struc- 

 ture adult and embryonic of the organism ; and by com- 

 paring the structure of various organisms, we are also 

 enabled to relate them together in a scheme of classification. 

 Then, secondly, the study of a living being necessitates our 

 looking at it from a physiological point of view. Morphology 

 taught us the structure and disposition of the vital machinery. 

 Physiology shows us how that machinery acts and works in 

 maintaining the life of the organism. Thus physiology is 



