Natural History in the Educational Program 



Then came, not without a fermentive period of prepara- 

 tion, the tremendous tumult of " Darwinism " and the evolu- 

 tion theory. Old ideas were suddenly disjointed and thrown 

 into the corners. A confusing and belligerent horde of new 

 problems ranged themselves squarely across the pathway of 

 the sciences, and with reiterating insistence clamored for de- 

 tailed investigation. The well-trod highways were suddenly 

 discovered to lead into foggy by-paths, indeed into thorny and 

 rough-floored jungles over the shivering verges of black- 

 shrouded precipices into the very murkiness of the Great 

 Night itself. 



The naturalist soon learned that his comfortable old tools 

 and easy methods were inadequate in the grapple with this 

 vast new array of unsolved problems. He must have new and 

 differentiated equipment. He must develop fresh modes of 

 attack. Laboratory technique miscroscopic work ma- 

 nipulations of physics and chemistry the collection, preser- 

 vation, and ^identification of material all these underwent 

 rapid and profound specializations. 



The naturalist himself was deeply affected by these trans- 

 formations. He could no longer browse leisurely throughout 

 the realm of nature. The subject-matter had vastly outgrown 

 him had become unwieldy and inaccessible. The old ways 

 became smattering and superficial. To make any headway, he 

 must specialize, choose a single problem or small group of 

 problems divest himself of all incumbrances and apply 

 himself strictly and vigorously to his own minute segment of 

 the wide-boundaried whole. He was no longer a " nat- 

 uralist," a student of all nature, that had become out of 

 the question. He must be an embryologist, plant pathologist, 

 meteorologist, invertebrate zoologist, vulcanologist, bacteri- 

 ologist, ichthyologist, entomologist, or what not. 



He no longer wrote delightfully rambling accounts of the 

 Natural History of the Amazons, the vegetation of East 

 Africa, the " Compleat Angler." He now published, in the 

 innumerable technical journals, painfully minute records, in 



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