ZOOLOGY AND ITS PURPOSE. 5 



Finally, we may study animals primarily from the 

 point of view of their influence on the w r ell-being of man. 

 There is scarcely a human interest to which animals do 

 not in some way contribute. Practically, this is one of 

 the most important departments of Zoology, and will 

 likely receive increasing attention in our schools in the 

 future. This idea of the relation of animals to our human 

 interests should not be absent from the thought of teacher 

 or pupil in any of the exercises. This is known as eco- 

 nomic Zoology. (See also Chapter XXX.) 



5. The Attitude of the Student Toward the Work. In order to 

 get the most out of Zoology, the student must bring to the work a 

 willingness to use the subject. The development in the teaching of 

 Zoology has been great in the last forty years; but the student 

 must not be allowed to think that the various devices, as the 

 laboratory, the museum, and the excursion, can take the place 

 of his own interest and effort. Indeed it is even more true of Biology 

 than of most subjects that the best results come to the student from 

 those topics and investigations for which he has sufficient interest 

 and enthusiasm to enable him to forget grades and time and self. 

 Some of the necessary material in a course in Zoology will perhaps 

 seem irksome drudgery to most students; but there is no student 

 who may not find a natural and vital and lasting interest in some of 

 the matter. The student is asked to find these subjects of greatest 

 interest, study them in the library and the field, write themes on 

 them, and organize the rest of the course about them. It does not 

 make any real difference whether the interest is in bees, or in ants, 

 spiders, butterflies, snails, fishes, or birds ; it does not matter whether 

 it is in coloration, or in manner of locomotion, or in the mating 

 instincts and care of young, or in the wonderful story of the develop- 

 ment of the frog from the tadpole or the fly from the maggot. By 

 all means become interested in something and let the word Zoology 

 always mean to you this one thing as the central thought. 



6. Library Work a Practical Exercise. The student 

 should early learn not to rely too implicitly on his text- 

 book. He has three other sources on which he must 

 learn to make demands: i, the observations which 



