42 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 159, 



I am aware that other points might be 

 raised ; but it is far from my purpose to 

 run down all possible objections. It is 

 enough to have indicated the grounds of 

 my choice of types. It now remains to 

 briefly sketch the general character and to 

 emphasize some of the leading features to 

 be represented in a biological station. 



The first requisite is capacity for growth 

 in all directions consistent with the sym- 

 metrical development of biology as a whole. 

 The second requisite is the union of the two 

 functions, research and instruction, in such 

 relations as will best hold the work and the 

 workers in the natural coordination essen- 

 tial to scientific progress and to individual 

 development. It is on this basis that I 

 would construct the ideal and test every 

 practical issue. 



A scheme that excludes all limitations 

 except such as nature prescribes is just 

 broad enough to take in the science, and 

 that does not strike me as at all extrava- 

 gant or even as exceeding by a hair's 

 breadth the essentials. Whoever feels it 

 an advantage to be fettered by self-imposed 

 limitations will part company with us here. 

 If any one is troubled with the question : 

 Of what use is an ideal too large to be 

 realized ? I will answer at once. It is the 

 merit of this ideal that it can be realized 

 just as every sound ideal can be realized, 

 only by gradual growth. An ideal that 

 could be realized all at once would exclude 

 growth and leave nothing to be done but to 

 work on in grooves. That is precisely the 

 danger we are seeking to avoid. 



The two fundamental requisites which I 

 have just defined scarcely need any amplifi- 

 cation. Their implications, however, are 

 far-reaching, and I may, therefore, point 

 out a little more explicitly what is involved. 

 I have made use of the term ' biological sta- 

 tion' in preference to those in more com- 

 mon use, for the reason that my ideal 

 rejects every artificial limitation that might 



check growth or force a one-sided develop- 

 ment. I have in mind, then, not a station 

 devoted exclusively to zoologj^, or exclus- 

 ively to botany, or exclusively to physiol- 

 ogy ; not a station limited to the study of 

 marine plants and animals ; not a lacustral 

 station dealing only with land and fresh- 

 water faunas and floras ; not a station lim- 

 ited to experimental work, but a genuine 

 biological station, embracing all these im- 

 portant divisions, absolutely free of every 

 artificial restriction. 



Now, that is a scheme that can grow just 

 as fast as biology grows, and I am of the 

 opinion that nothing short of it could ever 

 adequately represent a national center of 

 instruction and research in biology. Vast 

 as the scheme is, at least in its possibilities, 

 it is a true germ, all the principal parts of 

 which could be realized in respectable be- 

 ginnings in a very few years and at no 

 enormous expense. With scarcely any- 

 thing beyond our hands to work with, we 

 have already succeeded in getting zoology 

 and botany well started at Woods HoU, 

 and physiology is ready to follow. 



If, now, experimental biology could be 

 started, even in a modest way, it would add 

 immensely to the general attractions of our 

 work; for it would open a field which is 

 comparatively new and of rapidly growing 

 importance. There are so many things now 

 called ' experimental ' that I must explain 

 what I have in mind sufi&ciently to make 

 the general purpose intelligible. 



It is not the experimental embryology 

 redundantly described as ' developmental 

 mechanics ' which is now in vogue ; not 

 laboratory physiology, even in its wider 

 application to animals; not egg-shaking, 

 hetei'omorphism, heliotropism and the like 

 — not any of these things, but experimental 

 natural history, or biology, in its more 

 general and comprehensive sense. It is not 

 the natural history of the tourist, or the 

 museum collector, or the systematist, but 



