ON BIOLOGY. 77 



sirable to go. After fifteen years of age our youth can 

 readily grasp the advantages that are sure to flow from 

 a laboratory course, as I explained it a few moments ago. 

 Under a good instructor they can be easily taught in a 

 few lessons all the essentials of dissecting, and the use 

 of a school microscope and the other necessary instru- 

 ments to commence their work; and it is truly a pleasure 

 to find how often we meet with children at this age who 

 thoroughly enjoy and appreciate such a course of train- 

 ing. 



Of course it will not be necessary here to say anything 

 in reference to the value of the study of biology to the 

 students of the subject per se; or in other words to 

 those of either sex who have it in mind to follow the 

 science as a calling in life. To them it will be their 

 career, their profession, and that simply demands a 

 thorough academic course, or one in a university, and, 

 later, or partly taken in connection therewith, a general 

 course in biology taught upon the most modern and im- 

 proved plan. Subsequently the energies of the student 

 will be bent along the lines of the special department of 

 the science which he is best fitted in all ways to pursue. 

 In these days, so broad is the field, that no one ever 

 dreams of doing more than devoting his attention to some 

 very limited part of biology, and indeed, of necessity all 

 of our best biologists are specialists. So narrow are some 

 of the paths, that men are content to confine themselves 

 to even the study of restricted groups of some one class 

 of the main divisions. For instance, the years of the life 

 of some biologist may have been entirely devoted to avian 

 oology; another solely to the coleoptera among insects; or 

 in another case to the physiology of plants, and so on. 



Speaking for our own country alone, it is very gratify- 

 ing to Dote the constantly increasing value placed by the 

 medical profession at large upon biological knowledge; 

 and how the best medical schools in the land insist upon a 

 thorough course in biology as a most important part of their 

 curriculum. And there is every reason to see why this 

 should be so, for it is impossible to comprehend fully the 

 structure of the human body without a knowledge of the 

 morphology of other animals, any more than we can gain 

 the full meaning of human physiology without similar re- 

 searches into the physiology of all other organized types 

 of the other divisions of the animal kingdom. The mor- 

 phology, physiology and nature of plants are also quite 

 essential to the trained practitioner of physic; as is 

 psychology, and as complete a knowledge as possible of 



