BIOLOGY IX EDUCATION'. 25 



mechanical routine of abstract studies, to an intelligent 

 appreciation of his work and place in the world. The effort 

 to train pupils to think for themselves, is confessedly the 

 hardest task of the intelligent teacher; and I have said 

 enough of the method of biological study, I imagine, to show 

 how the science, founded on observation, must induce habits 

 of thought, which should affect the whole educational life of 

 the pupil. 



I might also point out how, especially in the case of girls, 

 the study of biology, in its effect of interesting them in the 

 world around, should act as an important means of further- 

 ing the after-education of their lives. The boy, with his 

 future destiny as a tradesman or professional man, has less 

 need than the girl of some solid study whereon the mind 

 may rest, and to which it may fly for the intellectual occu- 

 pation that it must inevitably feel the need of some time or 

 other. As Mr. Hamerton has well said, "To have one 

 favourite study, and live in it with happy familiarity, and 

 cultivate every portion of it diligently and lovingly, as a small 

 yeoman proprietor cultivates his own land, this, as to study 

 at least, is the most enviable intellectual life." And if a study 

 should be sought for which shall most pleasantly aid in the 

 cultivation of the inner life just described, it will assuredly be 

 found more readily within the domain of biology than in any 

 other department of human knowledge. To act as such a 

 mental stimulant; to effectually prevent the occurrence of that 

 miserable disease of female mental existence ennui; to give 

 the mind breadth" and tone from the beginning of its cultiva- 

 tion such are the benefits I claim for the school study of 

 biology, carried in its natural development into the after-life 

 of the pupil of either sex. 



That we need biological teaching, therefore, in our 

 schools, I think I may fairly maintain ; and that this need 

 should assert itself by demanding the necessary supply, I 

 must also boldly submit. It is for practical educationists 

 for those engaged in the daily labour of teaching, and of 

 observing what are the necessities of modern culture in its 



