286 ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY x 



I find this system to yield excellent results ; and 

 I have no hesitation whatever in saying, that any 

 one who has gone through such a course, atten- 

 tively, is in a better position to form a conception 

 of the great truths of Biology, especially of mor- 

 phology (which is what we chiefly deal with), than 

 if he had merely read all the books on that topic 

 put together. 



The connection of this discourse with the Loan 

 Collection of Scientific Apparatus arises out of the 

 exhibition in that collection of certain aids to our 

 laboratory work. Such of you as have visited that 

 very interesting collection may have noticed a series 

 of diagrams and of preparations illustrating the 

 structure of a frog. Those diagrams and prepara- 

 tions have been made for the use of the students 

 in the biological laboratory. Similar diagrams and 

 preparations illustrating the structure of all the 

 other forms of life we examine, are either made or 

 in course of preparation. Thus the student has 

 before him, first, a picture of the structure he ought 

 to see ; secondly, the structure itself worked out ; 

 and if with these aids, and such needful explana- 

 tions and practical hints as a demonstrator can 

 supply, he cannot make out the facts for himself 

 in the materials supplied to him, he had better 

 take to some other pursuit than that of biological 

 science. 



I should have been glad to have said a few 

 words about the use of museums in the study of 



