D.— ZOOLOGY. Ill 



liability to the attacks of pathogejiic microbes, and consequently we find 

 active evolution proceeding in the direction of increased immunity to such 

 as are prevalent and dangerous. It is a hideous experience to witness 

 the immigration of people from a more highly evolved society with their 

 .accompanying microbes into the midst of a remote and primitive com- 

 munity, and to see the horrible ravages these microbes produce when 

 disseminated amongst the virgin population. While, however, in this 

 particular respect evolution jjroceeds actively in the more advanced 

 communities, it is not so in other respects. The individual no longer depends 

 on his perfect bodily fitness, on the acuity of his senses, on the alertness 

 of his mind, to survive and reproduce. As a result, as seems beyond 

 question, the individual necessarily deteriorates with high civilisation in 

 his all-roimd fitness both mental and physical, and this retrogression 

 renders him correspondingly more and more dependent upon the com- 

 munity for his welfare. Emerging from this consideration, we have the 

 •conclusion that with higher and higher communal evolution, with more 

 and more intimate dependence of the individual upon the community, 

 we should have greater and greater attention paid in our educational 

 system to these subjects which have to do with the citizen's relations to 

 and duties towards the community — such as discipline, ethics, patriotism 

 and loyalty to country and comrades, and the past history of the community 

 and race. 



The last of these, in fact, the history of our race, is one of the subjects 

 of the present school curriculum which the biologist would be particularly 

 anxious to see retained, and even accorded increased importance. His 

 natural sympathies go out to it, for his own philosophy — Evolution — is 

 but history of a larger growth. No doubt he would sometimes wish its 

 ■teaching to be modified in detail : he would like to have less attention 

 •devoted to brawls and murders — on however great a scale — and to have a 

 little space spared for the achievements of science. In my own town of 

 Glasgow I often wonder how much the average child is taught regardinf 

 the two great events of the world's history which took place in that city — ■ 

 .James Watt's improvement of the steam-engine and Joseph Lister's 

 inauguration of antiseptic surgery. 



In these flippant days there is a tendency to scofE at pompous lines 

 regarding 'lives of great men,' and so on ; but are we quite sure that our 

 •children are not greatly the losers by hearing so little in their school days 

 regarding the dedicated lives of great heroes of science like Darwin or Lister ? 



In this address, which I must now draw to its close, I have touched 

 •upon some of the general considerations which naturally come to the 

 mind of the biologist when he thinks of his subject in relation to this 

 great and, as it has become, vitally important problem of the training of 

 the future citizen. Some matters that at once suggest themselves I have 

 deliberately avoided : Eugenics — ^there are others who speak of that ; 

 ■Sex — the whole air is abuzz with discussions on sex. The importance of 

 ■€very citizen being given a little elementary knowledge of the biological 

 -aspects of health and disease ; the importance of the school paying more 

 attention than it generally does to training the power of prolonged and 

 concentrated effort upon dull bits of work : neither of these points requires 

 Any special emphasis. 



There are, however, many other aspects of the problem which I refrain 



