ANATOMICAL TEACHING. 123 



Whilst climbing up the steep of his anatomical 

 Olympus, he gladly laid hold of every aid to the 

 ascent ; but, on obtaining the chair, he was much 

 more wary and greatly less discursive with his pen, 

 as if afraid of lessening the fame of his position by 

 hazarding the publication of anything rash and specu- 

 lative. He was now more solicitous about the 

 completion and perfection of his researches than the 

 number and variety of his papers. Now and then he 

 contributed to the archives of the Eoyal Society of 

 Edinburgh and the British Association ; but these 

 public appearances were to be viewed as manifesta- 

 tions of his ability to cope with the higher problems 

 of his science, and to show that the successor of the 

 Monros could hold his own in the advancing tides of 

 a newer philosophy. 



Anatomical teaching now became the predominant 

 fact in Goodsir's mind, and he longed to make it 

 consonant with the march of the science, so as to place 

 his pupils on the boundary-line of modern thought 

 and discovery. His first aim was the extension and 

 improvement of the dissecting-rooms, which he placed 

 under the superintendence of an active staff of 

 demonstrators and assistants. His experience of the 

 I'M i nl »ui" 1l school made him alive to the fact that 

 much of his success as a professor would be dependent 

 on the character and amount of instruction afforded 

 his pupils in iIm' practical anatomy course. Having 

 organised a thoroughly good system of teaching de- 

 scriptive and Burgica] anatomy, be fell the need <>t' 



