BIOLOGY IN EDUCATION. 21 



matter of national regret. Professor Owen similarity testifies 

 to the deficiency of natural history knowledge, and to the 

 necessity for the nation's awakening to the duty of science 

 culture in schools. This evidence, now of some years' date, 

 stands as typical of the need of biological instruction at the 

 present time, as when it was originally given. 



We have not, however, to look far in order to find those 

 who will require much argument to convince them that this 

 world, generally speaking, is a world of ignorance and doubt ; 

 and that, with its increasing wealth and prosperity, our own 

 country among others has an ever-recurring need of human- 

 ising, educating, and elevating influences. There are also 

 many who seem inclined to enter a chronic protest against 

 the importation into the studies of the young of anything 

 which in their opinion is to be of " no use." " Whatever 

 you study," says a shrewd writer, " some one will consider 

 that particular study a foolish waste of time." This utili- 

 tarian cry, this process of estimating the importance of any 

 branch of knowledge by a certain incomprehensible standard 

 of "use" and "no use," belongs to a class of policy which 

 is simply synonymous with narrow-minded limitation and 

 dangerous conservatism. A strict utilitarianism in matters 

 educational usually implies a stubborn obstructiveness. For, 

 to dogmatise from our knowledge of the present, what the 

 requirements of the future will or will not be, is a course of 

 procedure utterly at variance with the true work of the re- 

 former and with the tendencies of an advancing age. The 

 future may well wonder at many a present-day policy ; but I 

 am sure at none more so than that which arrogates to itself 

 the right of deciding and limiting educational progress ac- 

 cording to preconceived or traditional ideas of what is useful 

 and what is unnecessary. 



Yet the question of science-teaching in schools is too 

 frequently thus treated in the present day. " What," says 

 the writer I have just quoted, "when it is not your trade, 

 can be the good of dissecting animals or plants ? " He well 

 answers the supposed utilitarian query by the retort, "To 



