86 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. Ill 



most easily applied and misapplied, Professor Parker 

 continues : 



Huxley's method of teaching was based upon the 

 personal examination by the student of certain " types " 

 of animals and plants selected with a view of illustrating 

 the various groups. But, in his lectures, these types 

 were not treated as the isolated things they necessarily 

 appear in a laboratory manual or an examination syllabus ; 

 each, on the contrary, took its proper place as an example 

 of a particular grade of structure, and no student of 

 ordinary intelligence could fail to see that the types 

 were valuable, not for themselves, but simply as marking, 

 so to speak, the chapters of a connected narrative. More- 

 over, in addition to the types, a good deal of work of a 

 more general character was done. Thus, while we owe 

 to Huxley more than to any one else the modern system 

 of teaching biology, he is by no means responsible for the 

 somewhat arid and mechanical aspect it has assumed in 

 certain quarters. 



The application of the same system to botanical 

 teaching was inaugurated in 1873, when, being com- 

 pelled to go abroad for his health, he arranged that 

 Mr. (now Sir W.) Thiselton Dyer should take his 

 place and lecture on Botany. 



The Elementary Instruction in Biology, published in 

 1875, was a text-book based upon this system. This 

 book, in writing which Huxley was assisted by his 

 demonstrator, H. N. Martin, was reprinted thirteen 

 times before 1888, when it was " Revised and 

 Extended by Howes and Scott," his later assistants. 

 The revised edition is marked by one radical change, 

 due to the insistence of his demonstrator, the late 



