February 7, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



203 



and achievement as does the American As- 

 sociation for the Advancement of Science. 



2. Every department of science that ap- 

 pears as a part of the association at its 

 meetings shares this touch with the general 

 public in proportion to its activity and the 

 interest it expresses in the public at large. 



In my judgment these propositions are 

 statements of facts and not inferences. Ac- 

 cordingly, I leave them without attempting 

 to support them by argument, and ask: 

 Can we as zoologists afford to ignore — nay, 

 are we doing our full duty when we give 

 little or no thought to our possible influ- 

 ence outside of the circle of our labora- 

 tories ? 



When I see men and women rushing 

 from city to city or racing across the con- 

 tinent in automobiles in search of health or 

 invigorating "rest," I soften my judg- 

 ment with the fond hope that some day the 

 zoologists and botanists of our universi- 

 ties, colleges and normal schools will send 

 out teachers prepared to plant in the heart 

 of every school boy and girl a love for na- 

 ture that will become a heritage to be 

 handed down from generation to genera- 

 tion as an invaluable asset for the health 

 and happiness of the race. 



Of course, the realization of this hope 

 will not come until it is much more gener- 

 ally appreciated that, nature not being 

 man-made, communion with her in "God's 

 out-of-doors" compels man to leave the 

 worn paths of human activity and diverts 

 his attention to the things that are ever 

 attractive and vitalizing. There are rela- 

 tively few of us who are teachers, and still 

 fewer of those who are preeminently in- 

 vestigators, giving due weight to this point 

 of view. As a rule zoologists are either ig- 

 norant of or indifferent to the opportunity 

 open to them for service in this direction, 

 and in consequence are failing to fully dis- 

 charge their sacred obligations to society. 



Everywhere I find among thinking men 

 and women a strong undertone of an unex- 

 pressed, an uncrystallized sentiment that 

 for some reason or other zoology is not 

 meeting a demand that ought to — that 

 must exist in the best civilization. And 

 whenever I have outlined a plan of what 

 might be called natural history courses de- 

 signed especially for teachers and prospec- 

 tive teachers, I have been most enthusias- 

 tically urged to carry out the plan and pro- 

 vide something similar for the students 

 who are not selecting zoology or botany as 

 the major line of work. 



The love of living things as individuals 

 in a community is inseparable from the so- 

 cial or gregarious instinct. And when we 

 have reached years of discretion and in- 

 stinctively seize essentials, letting go the 

 non-essentials, we are still children at heart. 

 The child humanizes the actions of the ani- 

 mals that come into its experience and 

 names them as spontaneously as it does the 

 cousins, uncles and aunts. And no matter 

 how absorbed we may become in chromo- 

 somes, we are content and happy only when 

 we call the animals we see and hear by 

 name. The intellect may find satisfaction 

 in the contemplation of the obscure and the 

 abstract but the man of heart must have 

 the concrete individual. 



I venture to assert that every successful 

 teacher of zoology who awakens an active 

 interest in animal life and who fosters a 

 love for nature is successful by virtue of 

 his personal experience with animals in 

 their native environment. A class tired 

 and weary of the scientific discussion of a 

 morphological or embryological question 

 can be put on the qui vine any time with a 

 story personal to some particular animal 

 or group of animals. Time and time again 

 I have seen students weary unto sleepiness 

 awakened and kept awake for an hour by 

 an account of a simple but personal ex- 



