July 17, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



65 



and dry bulb thermometers, and it is meant 

 to exhibit the amount of error to be ex- 

 pected when the former is compared with 

 the latter in different parts of the scale. 



C. C. Tkowbridge. 



Columbia Univeesity. 



INSTRUCTION IN NATURAL HISTORY AT 

 THE JARDIN DES PLANTES, PARIS. 



It has been my good fortune to have 

 spent the past winter in carrying on inves- 

 tigations in the paleontological laboratory 

 of the Jar din des Plantes, Paris, and while 

 there I took the opportunity to study the 

 methods of instruction at the Museum 

 D'Histoire ]N"aturelle. I am especially in- 

 debted to MM. Albert Gaudry, Alphonse 

 Milne-Edwards, Henri Filhol and Marcellin 

 Boule. These gentlemen have placed ex- 

 ceedingly valuable material in my hands 

 for studj^, and I am greatly obliged to them 

 all for their extreme kindness during my 

 stay in Paris. 



The instruction at the Jardin des Plantes 

 consists of the ' cours ' or lectures, the 'con- 

 ferences ' or practical work in the labora- 

 tory, and the ' enseignements specials ' or 

 special instruction, generally for the benefit 

 of travelling naturalists. During the year 

 there have been eighteen courses of lectures 

 on various scientific subjects, eleven of 

 which were biological, the remaining being 

 on agriculture, physics, geology, etc. 

 Some of the subjects treated of by the pro- 

 fessors are certainly not intimately con- 

 nected with natural history, but we must 



remember that the Jardin des Plantes was 

 previously founded as a school of pharmacy, 

 and in connction with the same there was 

 a large garden for the cultivation of plants 

 for medical purposes. It was not until 

 1793 that the reorganization of the Jardin 

 des Plantes took place and regula-r courses 

 of public lectures were opened. It is inter- 

 esting to note that in this year two brilliant 

 men were added to the faculty of the 

 ' Jardin;' these were the Chevalier de 

 Lamarck and the young Etienne Geoffroy 

 Saint-Hilaire. The latter commenced a 

 course of lectures at this time, and later in 

 1798 accompanied Napoleon on his Egyptian 

 expedition, as naturalist. 



As a rule almost all of the naturalists 

 who have held professorships in the Jardin 

 des Plantes have been men of broad learn- 

 ing and have worked in many fields of 

 biology. This is noticeable in the public 

 lectures given at the ' Jardin,' and I can 

 safely say that even the systematists are well 

 grounded in comparative anatomy. When 

 we consider that the French naturalists 

 have had so great a teacher as Georges 

 Cuvier to follow, it is not strange that the 

 professors at the Museum W Histoire Na- 

 turelle fully appreciate the fact that 

 the curators, etc., of the Museum who lec- 

 ture should be well grounded in the mor- 

 phological relation of animals. 



The numerous lectures on biology given 

 at the Museum D' Histoire Naturelle are in 

 strong contrast with the few that are held 

 in other natural history museums of the 

 world. The lecture hall of the British 

 Natural History Museum has been given 

 up entirely and there are no lectures now 

 given in this institution. In fact, it is a 

 great question with the trustees of some 

 museums whether a natural history museum 

 is a place for teaching at all or simply a great 

 store-house, in which vast accumulation of 

 specimens are preserved, labelled and 

 placed by the hundreds in glass cases for 



