BIOLOGY IX EDUCATION. 7 



the study of biology is carried on in a truly scientific and 

 satisfactory manner. And yet I may be pardoned, I think, 

 if I state with some force, that I doubt emphatically if 

 biology has yet received any due recognition at all. So- 

 far as the teaching of biology in the schools of this country 

 is concerned, that work may be said to present itself in 

 the most unspecialised state in which it is possible for any 

 study to exist. Its cultivation is for the most part left to 

 chance ; or, what is much the same thing, to the predilec- 

 tions of the governing body of the school individual or 

 collective. From my own experience as a biological teacher, 

 I can state, that in very few cases have I been asked to- 

 lecture in schools on this subject. In general the need or 

 advantages of such instruction had, in the first instance, 

 been pressed home upon the head of the school ; and of 

 the instances in which the advantages of the study were 

 so urged and admitted, only a proportion of such cases 

 eventually adopted the study. 



My strong complaint, therefore, is, that the educational 

 world as a whole has yet to learn the place and power of 

 biological training. Teachers of the science have still to 

 combat the old notion that "science" consists only in dry 

 bones and abstruse technicalities. It is wonderful to find 

 how widely, even amongst otherwise intelligent people, 

 this idea of science prevails ; and until it is exploded or 

 thoroughly combated, no real progress in the fuller recog- 

 nition of science-teaching of any kind can be hoped for or 

 expected. Until science-teachers obtain an earnest, helpful 

 co-operation on the part of those who hold the reins in 

 matters educational ; until we succeed in convincing such 

 that science should form an essential item in an ordinary 

 education, demanding their fostering care and protection 

 in its early growth ; and until we can impress by practical 

 work and demonstration, the benefits and advantages which 

 can be shown to result from its study, science-teaching can 

 never obtain its true place beyond the walls of universities, 

 nor can it exist in any other fashion than as the feeble 



