94 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



staoding of life itself, the intangible mystery which makes ourselves 

 akin to all these specimens, the common possession which gives to man, 

 as to the lowest creature, the power of growth and reproduction. 



To my colleagues I say, let us no longer, in the reconstruction 

 immediately before us, tie ourselves down to the re-chewing of our dry 

 bones. They are but dead bones, and the great mystery which once 

 lived in them has passed from them, and it is that we must now 

 seek. Not in bones, in myriads of named specimens, does that mystery 

 dwell, but in the living being itself, in the growth and reproduction of 

 live creatures. Observation and experiment rather than tabulation and 

 docketing are our technique. What is that life, common to you, to me, 

 to our domestic pets, to animals and to plants alike? Surely this is 

 our goal, and the contents of our museums, means to this end, are 

 in danger of being regarded as the end. There is hope now. Those 

 of us who have the will to look can see zoology in its proper place, 

 the colleague of botany in applying physics and chemistry to the under- 

 standing of life itself. The study of life is the oldest of all sciences ; 

 it is the science in which the child earliest takes an interest; its study 

 has all the attributes required for education of the highest type, for the 

 appreciation of the beauty of form and of music, of unselfishness, of 

 self-control, of imagination, of love, and constancy. The more we know 

 of life, the more we appreciate Its wonders and the more we want to 

 know ; it is good to be alive. 



Surely the time has now come for us to lift our eyes from our 

 tables of groups and families, and, on the foundations of the know- 

 ledge of these, work on the processes going on in the living body, 

 the adaptation to enviromnent, the problems of heredity, and of many 

 another fascinating hunt in unknown country. Let us teach our 

 students not only what is known, but, still more, what is iinknown, for 

 in the pursuit of the latter we shall engage eager spirits who care nought 

 for collections of corpses. My own conviction is that we are in danger 

 of burying our live subject along with our specimens in museums. 



We see the same evil at work in the teaching of zoology from the 

 very beginning. Those of us who are parents know that the problems 

 of life assail a child almost as soon as it can speak, and that it is the 

 animal side of creation which makes the most natural and immediate 

 appeal to its interest and curiosity. Where such interest is intelligent 

 and constant it is safe to educate tiiily in the desired direction. You 

 will notice that the child's questions are very fundamental and that, 

 according to my experience, the facts elicited are applied widely, and 

 with perfect simplicity. Thus my own small daughter, having elicited 

 where the baby rabbits came from, said ' Oh ! just like eggs from hens. ' 



The child's own desires show up best what his mind requires for 

 its due development, and I fear no contradiction in claiming that it is 

 animal life in all its living aspects. Yet what is he given? Schools 

 encourage 'natural history,' as it is termed. In some it is nature; but 

 too often it consists in a series of prizes for dates — when the first 

 blooms of wild flowers were found; the first nests, eggs, and young of 

 birds; the records of butterflies and moths, etc. Actual instruction, if 

 there is any beyond this systematic teaching of destruction, frequently 



