CHAPTER II 



Biological institutions in America. Universities and colleges, 

 museums, botanical and zoological gardens, biological 

 stations and endowed laboratories. 



Biology's service to the world has been rendered under 

 many auspices, chief of which has been the college and the 

 university. Harvard College was the first of these to be 

 established in America. No sooner were the early colonists 

 of Massachusetts Bay domiciled in the wilderness than they 

 began to think of education, not only for their own sons, but 

 also for those of their savage neighbors, hoping doubtless to 

 convert them to civilization as readily as they turned the forest 

 into fertile fields of grain. 



Amidst the struggle for existence with savage men and 

 barren nature, in the face of privation, hardship, danger and 

 death; while "the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang" 

 not alone to "the anthem of the free" but also to the war- 

 whoop of the Indian, and the gleam of burning thatch lit up 

 ' ' the depths of the desert gloom ; ' ' the pilgrim fathers forgot 

 not posterity while thinking of themselves, and in the midst 

 of the wilderness established institutions of freedom, religion 

 and learning. 



"About midnight we heard a great and hideous cry, and 

 our Sentinell called, Arme, Arme ! So we bestirred our selues 

 and shot off a couple of Muskets, and noyse ceased; we con- 

 cluded, that it was a company of Wolues or Foxes, for one 

 told vs, hee had heard such a noise in New-found-land. About 

 fiue a clocke in the morning wee began to be stirring, and 

 two or three which doubted whether their Peeces would goe 

 off or no, made tryall of them, and shot them off, but though 

 at nothing at all. 



"After Prayer we prepared our selues for brek-fast, and 

 for a journey, and it being now the twilight in the morning, 

 it was thought meet to carry the things downe to the Shallop : 

 some sayd, it was not best to carry the Armour downe, others 

 sayd, they would be readier; two or three sayd, they would 

 not carry theirs, till they went themselues, but mistrusting 

 nothing at all : as it fell out, the water not being high enough, 

 they layd the things downe vpon the shore, & came vp to brek- 



47 



