226 



NATURE 



[January 6, 1898 



a severely didactic and somewhat uneven laboratory 

 treatise, is a book for the study, beautifully balanced and 

 poetic in idea. It has a charm peculiarly its own, and 

 to ponder over it is to appreciate to the full the honest, 

 loving, sympathetic temperament of its author, and the 

 conviction which he was prone to express that in the 

 progress of scientific education there lies the panacea for 

 most human ills, mental and corporeal. Great though 

 the merits of these books, Parker five years ago essayed 

 a more formidable task, in the resolve to prepare in 

 conjunction with his friend Prof. W. A. Haswell, 

 F.R.S., of the Sydney University, a general text-book of 

 zoology. This work of 1400 pages, in two volumes, as 

 recently announced in Nature, will be noteworthy for 

 the large number and excellence of its original illustra- 

 tions ; and from a passing knowledge of its contents, 

 I am of opinion that it will do much towards relieving 

 English text-book writers of the opprobrium begotten 

 of a too frequent content with mere translation and 

 /continental methods. And when we consider that 

 Parker was not spared to see this great work in cir- 

 culation, it is heartrending to relate that, though ailing 

 and weak, he had since arranged with his co-author and 

 publishers for the production of a shorter text-book to be 

 based upon it, and had prepared the preliminary pages 

 of yet another elementary treatise to have been entitled 

 " Biology for Beginners," while as a next subject of 

 research he had begun to work out, in conjunction 

 with Mr. J. P. Hill, Demonstrator of Biology in the 

 Sydney University, a series of Emeu chicks, including 

 those collected by Prof. R. Semon during his expe- 

 dition into the Australian Bush. The thoroughness 

 of Parker's best work was its most distinctive character, 

 and when tempted to generalise he always did so with 

 •extreme caution and consideration for others, fairly 

 presenting all sides of an argument. As he remarked of 

 Jiimself with characteristic modesty, in a letter written 

 in 1894 commenting upon his chances of securing a 

 chair of Zoology at home then vacant, " I don't profess 

 to be brilliant, but I am vain enough to think that I have 

 the gift of exposition and can do a straightforward 

 research so long as it does not involve anything about 

 the inheritance of acquired characters." Far-reaching 

 generalisation and random rhetoric had no charm for 

 him, nor was he tempted into over-ambition and haste 

 -SO oft productive of slip-shod and ill-conditioned results. 

 As a writer and lecturer he was always logical, cautious, 

 temperate, content could he but spread, extend, and help 

 systematise our knowledge of observed facts, convinced 

 that if this be done properly their ultimate teachings 

 become self-evident. His work is of that order which 

 marks the growth of real knowledge and the consequent 

 bettering of mankind ; and the thought that there has 

 thus early passed from the ranks one so good and earnest, 

 so well fitted by nature for the responsible task of training 

 the young and susceptible, fills us with sorrow. 



Parker matriculated at the London University in June 

 1868, and passed the Intermediate Science Examination 

 in 1877 and the final B.Sc. in 1878, while the D.Sc. was 

 but a matter of formal application in absentia in 1892. 

 He was in 1888 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, 

 and in 1880 an Associate of the Linnean Society of 

 London, resigning the Associateship for the Fellowship 

 of the latter but a short time before his death. He was 

 an active member of the New Zealand Institute, to which 

 he communicated several papers, and he became in turn 

 Secretary and President of its Otago branch. Before 

 these bodies and elsewhere in New Zealand he delivered 

 addresses which will linger in the memory of his hearers 

 and those who have read them. There may be especially 

 mentioned an address delivered before the Otago Univer- 

 sity Debating Society on September 17, 1892, upon "the 

 weak point in our university system," in reality an 

 eloquent appeal for post-graduate study. Proceeding 



NO. 147 1. VOL. 57] 



to classify an average assemblage of students into "the 

 able, the mediocre, and the stupid," he remarked that 

 "the only duty of members of the university towards 

 the third class appeared to be that of imposing a 

 sufficiently severe entrance examination to keep them 

 from wasting their own time and their parents' money, in 

 the vain attempt to train to purely intellectual pursuits an 

 organism which nature intended to make its way by 

 virtue of muscle and mother wit." A more ingenious 

 defence of an examination system could hardly be 

 imagined. It is preceded by the shrewd remark that 

 " the republic of science and letters is an aristocratic, not 

 a democratic republic." Parker was evidently of opinion 

 that what the world terms breeding and feeding count 

 for a great deal in the end, and the whole context of his 

 address is apposite to the share he took in the work of 

 organisation of the University of New Zealand, which led 

 at least to a humanising of its syllabus in biology. And 

 for any one desirous of a knowledge of Parker at his best in 

 a popular function, a speech delivered on the occasion of 

 the prize-giving at the Otago Boys High School on 

 December 13, 1894, may be recommended, as a perfect 

 example of the kind of thing appropriate to such an 

 occasion, so oft provocative of the mere " airy nothing." 

 Parker was, further, a Corresponding Member of the 

 Zoological Society of London and of the Linnean Society 

 of New South 'Wdles, a Member of the Imperial Society 

 of Naturalists of Moscow, and we believe he was Pre- 

 sident-elect of the Biological Section of the Australasian 

 Association for the Advancement of Science for the 

 present year. He was also a Fellow of the Royal 

 Microscopical Society ; and, ever ready to help in a good 

 work, he became one of the original assistant editors 

 who, under the generous leadership of Frank Crisp, in 

 1879 elevated the Society's Journal to its present 

 important status. 



The key-note of Parker's life-work is his connection 

 with Huxley, and in testimony to his devotion to his 

 great chief (" the General," as he loved to call him) there 

 remains the delightful dedication of his " Lessons in 

 Elementary Biology." Parker entered Huxley's service 

 as Demonstrator in Biology at South Kensington in 1872, 

 immediately after the conclusion of the memorable course 

 of instruction there given, now historical as having 

 marked the introduction of rational methods into the 

 teaching of natural science. In the conduct of that course 

 Huxley, as is well known, secured the aid of leading 

 British biologists of the time. It was, however, reserved 

 for Parker to fill the more important role of lieutenant in 

 the development of the Huxleian system and to assist 

 in carrying it beyond the experimental stage. At the 

 time of his appointment laboratory appliances were 

 lacking, and a practical teaching museum based on the 

 type-system was a desideratum. Under instructions to 

 supply these needs, Parker in due course entered upon 

 the task with a will, his only materials a free-hand and 

 an early set of proofs of Huxley and Martin's " Elemen- 

 tary Biology " (with the final revision of which he was 

 largely entrusted, since the junior author was leaving for 

 Baltimore), and in carrying the task to a successful issue 

 he founded the first practical biological museum or 

 teaching-collection on the now generally adopted 

 type-system, the prototype of all those subsequently 

 established at home and abroad, in some cases even to 

 the measurements of the furniture. The Huxleian 

 method of laboratory instruction in the course of its 

 development at headquarters has witnessed no change 

 on the zoological side at all comparable to the inversion 

 in the order of the work originally prescribed—/.^, the 

 substitution of the anatomy of a vertebrate for the 

 microscopic examination of a unicellular organism as 

 the opening study, and this we owe entirely to Parker. 

 As one privileged at the time to play a minor part, I well 

 recall the determination in Parker's mind that the change 



