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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1220 



The subtle lure of discovery is here, and 

 the dignity of personal achievement. The 

 spirit of research is here, to transform the 

 drudgery of soulless routine into the excite- 

 ment of self -realization. High enthusiasms 

 are here, moments of strong emotion and 

 lofty aspiration. 



This is all to be had, if it is permitted. 

 There are reasons vrhy it is not always per- 

 mitted. Sometimes they are reasons of cal- 

 culated educational policy, more often of 

 administrative expediency. But what is of 

 far more importance than the reasons to the 

 individual student are the courses he is per- 

 mitted to elect. It is profoundly unfor- 

 tunate if he feels, on entering the zoological 

 laboratory, that he has somehow lost his 

 intellectual freedom, that he has been shorn 

 of his initiative, that what is henceforth ex- 

 pected of him is a docile and orderly record 

 of certain selected observations that he is 

 directed to make. 



Such cases occur, though exceptionally. 

 That they do not occur more commonly is 

 because the habit of docile indifference has 

 already been acquired in the preparatory 

 years. The pupil has frequently learned, 

 like the Prussian soldier, to think by com- 

 mand only. He is ready to do what he is 

 told to do. He is helpless when not told. 

 He regards the instructor as a taskmaster, 

 and the laboratory as a drill ground where 

 his own responsibility is reduced to the 

 minimum, where personal desires are of no 

 practical value, but where it is useful, with 

 a view to graduation, to be silent and obey. 



We all recognize the deplorable type. Do 

 we accept it? I am sure that we do not. 

 For if we should, the little good that zool- 

 ogy might accomplish in the individual life 

 under such circumstances would be neg- 

 ligible in proportion to the wastage that 

 would surrtound it. 



If we do not, what then ? 



One plan of action at least may be sug- 



gested of the many that are doubtless in 

 practise among you. It would adopt all 

 necessary measures to save the student's 

 initiative, quicken his imagination, teach 

 him the trick of invention, make a true re- 

 searcher of him, if you will, in spirit. It 

 would insist that each student regard the 

 laboratory as his workshop where, with the 

 facilities to be obtained there, he may think 

 out and solve his own problems. It would 

 set no conventional boundaries to the lab- 

 oratory, which would best be considered the 

 place where the student happened to be at 

 work, whether in the college laboratory 

 proper, or in the field, or at home. But it 

 would stipulate that he do not come to the 

 laboratory empty-minded ; that he bring an 

 inquiry that could best be investigated 

 there, and that he develop the investiga- 

 tion with all due regard to care in observa- 

 tion, logic in thought, clearness and sig- 

 nificance in record. The immediate envir- 

 onment would be the primary source of his 

 material. Laboratory manuals would be 

 limited to necessary technical directions. 

 The classroom would serve for the discus- 

 sion of principles, the formulation of prob- 

 lems, the criticism of results and the con- 

 nection between it and the laboratory and 

 the library be made as intimate and prac- 

 tical and workmanlike as possible. 



In some such way the colleges might dis- 

 charge a portion of their tacit obligation to 

 place zoology in fullest measure at the serv- 

 ice of the individual citizen, for the satis- 

 faction of those wants that pertain to his 

 personal life, whatever his vocational in- 

 terests. Indeed, it is to the colleges espe- 

 cially that he must look for this help. For 

 the colleges produce the teachers of zoology 

 the country over. And the teachers touch 

 the public with an intimacy of contact that 

 is their privilege alone. 



Harry Beal Torrey 

 Eeed College 



