December 3, 1886. J 



SCIENCE. 



515 



people apainst charlatans and quacks. To attain 

 this purpose most effectually, no better plan could 

 have been devised than to require that the people, at 

 least, should be notified in advance, or have at their 

 command the means of notifying themselves, of the 

 authority and qualifications of those proposing to en- 

 gage in a profession so nearly affecting the lives and 

 health of themselves and families Without some 

 such notice and information, the law would become 

 entirely nugatory'''' (Hilliard vs. The state, 7 Tex. 

 appeals 69). The clerk of Kings county in this mat- 

 ter is a law to himself. There is no decision to sus- 

 tain his position, and I have his admission that what 

 you call 'an opinion' is not an opinion in any legal 

 sense of the term. 



One word as to the facts in the case you refer to. 

 A notice calling (he attention of the person arrested 

 to the law was mailed him, and another was sent to 

 his house. No reply was received to either. A 

 * sandwich advertisement' paraded Broome Street, 

 calling attention to the 'Live and let live dispensary' 

 conducted in his name. It is true he was locked up 

 for fifteen minutes, but owing, I was told, to his 

 conduct in the court. His entire detention did not 

 last three hours. I consented to his discharge when 

 I found that he was technically able to obey the law. 

 He claimed to have offended through ignorance, and I 

 accepted his statement without thoroughly believing 

 it. I could have convicted him. He rewarded my 

 leniency by bringing his absurd suit, that had no 

 chance of success. He admitted, on cross-examina- 

 tion, that his verified complaint did not truly and 

 fully state the facts of his arrest and the charge 

 against him. 



I have written at some length because you have 

 been evidently misled. It is not possible for you to 

 find an instance — I will not say of a reputable prac- 

 titioner — of a person technically qualified to practise 

 physic, or able to so qualify, who has been improperly 

 prosecuted by the society. What has been done 

 during the year by them appears in their annual re- 

 port. W. A. PURRINGTON. 

 New York, Nov. 39. 



[The letter which we print above comes too late to 

 enable us to ascertain whether the case to which our 

 correspondent refers in the next to the last paragraph 

 of his letter is the same as the one to which we had 

 reference in the editorial on p. 447 of Science (viii. 

 No. 198) ; but we shall immediately investigate it, 

 and, if any injustice has been done in the matter, it 

 shall be rectified. The facts as stated by us were 

 received from the physician himself, and we have 

 known him for many years as a reputable practi- 

 tioner and a graduate of one of the best medical col- 

 leges in the country. In reference to the ' opinion,' 

 we do not know exactly how formal a declaration 

 must be to make it ' legal ;' but there is in the office 

 of the county clerk of Kings county a memorandum, 

 made by the clerk in his official book of registration, 

 that on a given date, which we do not now recall, 

 in the year 1885, Justices Cullen and Bartlett of the 

 supreme court, on an application for advice by the 

 clerk, gave it as their opinion that it was absurd that 

 a physician should be expected to register in every 

 county of the state, and that opinion has been the 

 guide of the county clerk in the matter. We regret 

 that we are unable to give the exact language of this 

 opinion by reason of lack of time, but will do so in 

 our next issue. — Ed.] 



The teaching of natural history. 



Referring to your last issue, ' A. Reader's ' diffi- 

 culty seems to be that he looks upon the scientific 

 name of an object as an end-in-itself ; and, if I were 

 to respond to his invitation to turn instructor in 

 natural history for his special benefit, I should 

 roughly counsel him (for he is evidently an old sin- 

 ner), first of all to let names altogether alone. As 

 however, this is my first essay in teaching, I may be 

 quite at fault, and perhaps am leaning too much on 

 my own experience, when, after three years of work- 

 ing by myself on the name-plan, and thinking I 

 knew a precious bit of entomology, I was brought to 

 a dead halt by Agassiz, who gave me the outside of 

 one dead fish to stare at for three long days, and 

 afterwards some hundreds to describe and classify 

 without any books and without any names. Letters 

 and numerals were enough for that ; and not till the 

 work was done did I know what other people called 

 these fish, otherwise than that Agassiz used the single 

 word ' Haemulon ' for them all, used simply as ' fish ' 

 might be, — as a mere convenience. Needless to 

 say that I returned to entomology with a different 

 and a more humble spirit. Looking as I do upon 

 that lesson as my set-off in science, I may be giving 

 it a too universal application, for I have had no ex- 

 perience in actual teaching ; still, if I were to sum 

 up my own conviction as to the proper method of 

 teaching in natural history, it would be : specimens 

 rather than (but not necessarily without) books ; 

 relationship rather than (but not necessarily exclud- 

 ing) names. 



Now, to apply this to the little book (French's 

 ' Butterflies') which seems to have sprung this dis- 

 cussion on a suffering public, and is thereby pretty 

 well advertised. How much does it help a student 

 to understand the relationship of our butterflies ? 

 There are three ways of doing this : 1"^. By the 

 actual arrangement of the material, a method which 

 in the nature of things cannot be avoided. No 

 reason for the particular sequence employed is given. 

 2^*. By the definition of the groups. The arrange- 

 ment provides for five families, twelve subfamilies or 

 similar divisions, and fifty-one genera. Not a single 

 one of the genera is defined ; and, though short 

 descriptions are given of the higher groups, these 

 occupy, in all, scarcely more than 5 of the 305 

 pages given to the descriptive part of the book ; all 

 the rest is devoted to species. 3°. By analytical 

 keys. One general key is given, and it occupies 

 nearly twenty-six pages. Your reviewer called this 

 " fairly good, so far as the perfect insect goes," and 

 afterwards " faulty, because largely made up of un- 

 important characters, and because it takes no account 

 of the earlier stages." ' A teacher ' replies, " The key 

 does trace into the families, the genera, and the 

 species ; and all the families and genera are more or 

 less fully characterized either in the key or in the 

 body of the work." As stated above, not one genus 

 is characterized as such in the body of the work : 

 therefore this must be interpreted as saying that all 

 the genera are characterized in the key. This is true 

 of all but Melitaea (the names of Neonympha and 

 Calephelis having been accidentally omitted in their 

 proper place) ; but let us see what the characteriza- 

 tion amounts to, as a clew to arrangement or com- 

 parative structure. There are, in all, 443 categories 

 used ; but as 214 of these lead directly to species 

 only, in which structural differences are much less to 



