November 13, 1886.] 



SCIEN'CE. 



435 



drawn by the author. Is Dr. Shufeldt's insinuation 

 a manly one, that I would leave the students to 

 " choose from among the most trustworthy and best 

 of the unacknowledged ones these eight, and accredit 

 the author with them " ? 



The figures after Morse, Riley, Coues, Hornaday, 

 Rymer Jones, Owen, ' and many others,' are among 

 the 154 previously acknowledged in my other two 

 earlier books. 



To further illustrate Dr. Shufeldt's reckless man- 

 ner of writing : he remarks that fig. 212, after 

 Graber, " looks to my mind far more like the claw of 

 a young lobster than the head of a cockatoo." The 

 figure is a diagram sufficiently well drawn to answer 

 the purpose intended. 



One who did not have the book before him would 

 naturally infer, from Dr. Shufeldt's statement, that 

 the skeleton of the wild ass was the only mammalian 

 skeleton figured, whereas there are illustrations of 

 those of the cow, whale, cat, bat, and walrus, with 

 sketches of the limbs and skulls of other forms. 



There are other reckless charges of ' carelessness ' 

 which seem undeserved. The 'First lessons' was 

 not hastily written. Spare time during a period of 

 over two years was given to its preparation. The 

 manuscript was read, revised, and reread ; some 

 chapters were read over several times ; it was also 

 read aloud to two children of fourteen and seventeen 

 years, to make sure that it should be intelligible. 

 The borrowed illustrations were chosen with care : 

 they are necessarily uneven in character, where 

 drawn by artists of unequal ability, and copied from 

 authors of varying merit. 



In closing let me say that I believe in searching, 

 sharp criticism of text and illustrations ; it tends to 

 greater care and accuracy : but let it be fair, manly, 

 and ingenuous ; and let the critic be at least as 

 guarded and exact in his statements as the author 

 with whom he finds fault. A. S. Packard. 



Provideuce, Oct. 30. 



The teaching of natural history. 



Two works intended for ' beginners ' in zoology 

 have been criticised in recent numbers of Science, — 

 Packard's ' First lessons in zoology ' and French's 

 ' Butterflies of the eastern United States.' These 

 criticisms have been in the line of the prevailing 

 fashion, in that the one which begins with micro- 

 scopic animals, and shows such parts as can be seen 

 only by the aid of first-class objectives, manipu 

 lated by first-class microscopists, is highly com- 

 mended ; while the other, which takes up animals 

 that can be seen, and treats of parts and changes 

 that can be observed by any student with the naked 

 eye, is utterly condemned. 



As a teacher of many years' experience with begin- 

 ners in zoology, I hope you will let me be heard, 

 though my remarks are not at all in the fashion. 



The critic of French's work begins by saying, 

 " The whole aim of the author seems to be to enable 

 his reader to find out the name of a specimen in 

 hand ; and to this end his analytical key is fairly 

 good, so far as the perfect insect goes, excepting, 

 that as no tables are given for genera, families, etc., 

 it would not help the student if species not included 

 in the book were to turnup." The ' whole aim,' etc. 

 Only 25J pages are devoted to the key, and the book 

 contains over 400. ' To find out the name of a 

 specimen.' This seems, in the eyes of the fashion- 



able critic, an unpardonable sin. What does any one 

 want the name for ? I can but think that there are 

 a few good reasons for knowing the name quite early 

 in the progress of acquaintanceship with an animal 

 or plant : 1°, it will enable the worker to read what 

 is already known about it, and thus know whether 

 he has discovered any thing new ; 2% if he has found 

 out something new, he can tell or write the news 

 and say what he is talking or writing about ; 3% in- 

 formation fastened to something, be it only a name 

 can be kept in mind or in a note-book. The key analyzes 

 only the ' perfect insect.' What work, either with 

 or without a key, would enable one to determine 

 either animals or plants at all stages ? How would 

 Coues's ' Key ' or Gray's ' Manual ' stand this test ? 

 For ' genera, families,' etc. The key does trace into 

 the families, the genera, and the species ; and all the 

 families and genera are more or less fully charac- 

 terized either in the key or in the body of the 

 work. 'Species not included.' The book gives 

 all the known species of the region : who could give 

 the unknown ones ? 



I quote again from the critic. " Third, the whole 

 aim of the author appears to be to enable the user 

 to answer the question, ' What is the name of my 

 butterfly?' — for pedagogical purposes, not even a 

 worthy, far less the best end." Of course, he had 

 said all this before, but the ' whole ' is represented by 

 the fraction ^V- The author does not make it a 

 ' worthy' and ' best end,' but he does make it just 

 what it is, a worthy and best beginning ; and from 

 this good beginning he goes on to tell of its different 

 stages of growth through Bgg, larva, pupa, and per- 

 fect form ; of its food ; and of its seasonal changes • 

 thus helping the pupil to become a true, original in- 

 vestigator by discovering new facts of growth and 

 development. 



A little later in the criticism, the book is said not 

 to contain all that has been published about every 

 species. The critic has twice said it didn't contain 

 any thing but key. I know of no dozen works which 

 together contain so many important facts as this one • 

 and, on account of its size, the publisher probably 

 had the author pay for the plates. I am thankful 

 that he has been good enough to give this much for 

 ' pedagogical purposes. ' 



The criticism is finally clinched by this remark ' It 

 is but the rehabilitation of the dry husks of a past 

 generation.' If there are any dry husks in science, 

 it is well illustrated by many of the late works for 

 beginners in botany and zoology in which the classi- 

 fication and characterization of orders, families, etc. 

 are given, from bacteria to a buttercup in the one' 

 and to man in the other, — dry husks, 1°, because 

 classification is ever changing ; 2°, it is a classifica- 

 tion of unknown things, and necessarily so, as nearly 

 all students in schools live away from the sea and 

 have no chance to work with good microscopes, and 

 more than half of classification pertains to marine 

 and microscopic forms ; 3°, such condensed classifica- 

 tion as is possible in a 300-page book is so faulty as 

 to be useless or worse. Take the other method for 

 determining classification, i.e., by the use of a key. 

 The pupil begins with something to classify, and as 

 soon as he reaches the name of an order, family, etc., 

 has an example to illustrate it. He knows what he 

 is studying, and has determined by actual observa- 

 tion the arrangement and parts of its organs. He 

 has been changed from a book- worm to an original 

 observer. 



