82 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 212. 



tween teaching and research. Advances in 

 teaching must be, in the main, founded up- 

 on advances in research. Objects which 

 every beginner in zoology sees and studies 

 to-day were known to only a few investiga- 

 tors ten years ago. Methods which are 

 common property now were then being 

 worked out for the first time. The interest 

 and value of teaching is directly propor- 

 tional to the teacher's acquaintance with 

 original sources of knowledge. The all too 

 common method of leaning — or rather rid- 

 ing — upon a text-book violates the whole 

 laboratory idea, and the more advanced 

 custom of relying upon original papers with- 

 out making any attempt to see the things 

 described is but little better. Every teacher 

 should endeavor to see and know for him- 

 self, and to give his students opportunity to 

 see and know the classical objects upon 

 which important doctrines of zoology rest. 

 But the relation of the teacher to re- 

 search should not be merely that of a hearer 

 of the word, but of a doer also. Research 

 work on the part of the teacher and, if pos- 

 sible, by at least a few advanced students 

 should be a part of the teaching equipment of 

 every college and university. Too frequently 

 and indiscriminately has it been maintained 

 that the qualities which make a man a good 

 investigator ruin him as a teacher. The 

 examples of Agassiz, Huxley, Leuckart and 

 many others, both here and abroad, show 

 how erroneous is such a view. Great ability 

 as an investigator may be united with quali- 

 ties which are ruinous to the teacher, but 

 these are not qualities essential to research. 

 On the other hand, a good teacher must be, 

 at least to a certain extent, an investigator 

 also. The ability to make a subject plain 

 is not the first nor, indeed, the most impor- 

 tant function of a college or university 

 teacher ; his first duty is to arouse interest 

 in his subject, to direct students to reliable 

 sources of information and to encourage 

 them in independent work. For all of these 



purposes research is of the utmost value- 

 A new fact discovered in a laboratory is a 

 stimulus to faithful and independent work, 

 such as nothing else in the world can be ; 

 whatever other requirements colleges and 

 universities may make upon their teachers, 

 they might safely require that they be con- 

 tributors to knowledge. The greatest mis- 

 take which a college or university teacher 

 can make is to talk and act as if his science 

 were a closed and finished one. A subject 

 which seems old and stale to the teacher will 

 seem uninteresting and unimportant to the 

 learner. To the teacher who has only a text- 

 book knowledge of things all subjects soon 

 seem finished, fixed, bottled and labelled ; 

 once a year, perhaps, he wearily exhibits 

 these dead and changeless things before 

 his sufi'ering class. But the teacher who real- 

 izes how little we kno,w about any subject 

 and how much remains to be learned — who, 

 while accurately presenting what is known, 

 can by both precept and example help to 

 extend the bounds of knowledge — will never 

 find his subject stale nor his class uninter- 

 ested. 



It will be objected that in many subjects 

 and in most institutions such a course is 

 impossible. Undoubtedly if. is more dif- 

 ficult to make discoveries in some fields 

 than in others, but it is one of the particu- 

 lar charms of the biological sciences that 

 the opportunities for research here are 

 greater than in most other subjects. The 

 great amount of teaching and of adminis- 

 trative work which is required of many 

 teachers is the greatest obstacle to this plan; 

 and yet I know persons who teach from 

 twenty-five to thirty hours a week and who 

 yet find time to do research work, if in 

 no other way, at least by keeping their 

 eyes open for new points in the material 

 used in their classes. 



It is sometimes maintained that there is 

 a fundamental difference in kind between 

 graduate and undergraduate teaching, and 



