April 14, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



543 



limitations which must be considered in 

 particular cases. There are, however, some 

 simple and universal demands which all 

 general courses in biological subjects may 

 be expected to meet, but which are fre- 

 quently neglected in favor of the special in- 

 struction deprecated above. 



1. Formal instruction should not fall heliind 

 general knowledge in dealing with familiar 

 things. This does not mean that students 

 of zoology should all become veterinarians, 

 but it does mean that they should know 

 something more about horses than the aver- 

 age of uninstructed humanity. It is no 

 special credit to the educated man who 

 ' had a course in botany ' to be badly poi- 

 soned by contact with a weed which thou- 

 sands who never heard of botany have 

 learned to avoid. To be able to recognize 

 the more common edible fungi is an accom- 

 plishment which none would be likely to 

 regret. In fine, the educated man is a man 

 none the less, and a part of nature through- 

 out his mortal life, and any so-called in- 

 struction which does not, within its ]Dar- 

 ticular province, increase his efficiency in 

 contact with his environment lacks prime 

 elements of interest and importance. 



2. Literary development requires the command 

 of a reasonable scientific vocabidary. It is too 

 late in the age of the world for whales and 

 porpoises to be called ' fish,' for corals to be 

 called ' insects,' for lichens to be called 

 ' moss.' For literary purposes, if for no 

 other, a man should know an elm from a 

 hickory or a woodbine. The ignoramus is 

 no longer at a premium on account of any 

 supposed profundity. The poet who has his 

 crows' nest in the fence corner will surelj^ 

 come to grief and derision, likewise he who 

 puts the swallows' nest in the tree. 



3. To insure familiarity and subsequent recog- 

 nition, natural objects shoidd, as far as possible, 

 be seen in nature. The graduate from school 

 or college who has not gained a larger in- 

 sight and a deeper interest in surrounding 



nature and natural objects may know, with- 

 out peradventure, that he has suffered a 

 grievous loss through the incompetence of 

 the biological contingent of the faculty. 

 The teacher who is accustomed to cai-ry his 

 classes ' through ' botany and zoology with- 

 out taking them into the field is a danger- 

 ous fraud whose ' course ' consists in some 

 routine work or specialized sawdust which 

 the general student can safely neglect as 

 likely to be of minimum utility or bearing 

 on culture. 



4. Every science should give its students a gen- 

 eral vieiv of its subject-matter. At some time 

 in the course of their biological education 

 students should see and examine, if possi- 

 ble, representatives of the principal groups 

 of animals and plants. It may or may not 

 be desirable to go into great detail in the 

 study of these ' types,' certainly not if 

 thereby the other numbers of this enumera- 

 tion are to be neglected. It is far better to 

 show the general student forty different 

 sorts of crustaceans and point out their gen- 

 •eral agreement in structure than to have 

 him spend the time in cutting up one par- 

 ticular form and in learning the names of 

 parts and organs which he never saw before 

 and will never see again. 



In the botanical text-books used in the 

 secondary schools ten years ago only the 

 barest mention ofthe lower plants was made 

 ferns, mosses, fungi and sea-weeds being 

 summarily dismissed as ' Cryptogams. ' In 

 a recently published work of secondary 

 grade the structure, organs and functions 

 of mosses, for instance, are explained or dis- 

 cussed in nine different places. It is safe 

 to say that the information furnished in this 

 form serves to obscure already confused 

 ideas of physiology and moi-phology rather 

 than to widen and clarify the student's 

 botanical horizon by giving him a modicum 

 of elementary knowledge concei'ning an in- 

 teresting group of organisms. 



5. Every science should give its students an 



