June 22, 1900.] 



SCIENCR 



971 



rooms of their own, held stated meetings, 

 and accumulated collections. The Detroit 

 Society has long since decayed and its col- 

 lections have passed into other hands. The 

 people of Grand Eapids are so apathetic 

 that there seems every reason to fear that 

 they will permit the collections of the Kent 

 County Society, to pass out of the city. 



Many similar societies in other parts of 

 the country have had like histories. A 

 number of such are known to me. 



This decline of popular interest has af- 

 fected not so much the theories of natural 

 history as its materials, not so much per- 

 haps popular interest as popular partici- 

 pation. It has taken place by the side of 

 an unprecedented activity in zoology in the 

 universities and colleges and in the scien- 

 tific work of the government. 



May we not seek "the explanation of it in 

 two directions. First in the hostility or 

 apathy of the church. So long as the 

 study of natural history seemed merely to 

 reveal the wonders qf creation and to mag- 

 nify the marvellous work of the creator, 

 the church encouraged it. The evolution 

 idea on the other hand was strongly com- 

 batted by the church. While it is, per- 

 haps, not possible to trace the effect of this 

 controversy on the popular interest in nat- 

 ural history, we may feel sure that a state 

 of mind which looked upon every animal 

 adaptation, as upon every visitation of dis- 

 ease, as an expression of divine wisdom, 

 must have been more sympathetic toward 

 the study of natural history, than one 

 which saw in the animal only a vaguely 

 comprehended end-result of an evolution 

 process, itself subversive of accepted re- 

 ligious beliefs. 



A further reason for the decline in pop- 

 ular interest may be sought in the lack of 

 stimulus from above. The zoologists of the 

 universities and colleges had become mor- 

 phologists. A few of them kept up an in- 

 terest in systematic zoology, but for the 



most part they were engaged in the labora- 

 tory study of the anatomy and develop- 

 ment of preserved animals. Existing ani- 

 mals, the end-results of an evolution process 

 were to be grouped in accordance with 

 their genealogical history. The activities 

 of animals, their habits, habitats, distri- 

 bution, their relations to their environ- 

 ment, their ecology in short — all these 

 were thought to be of little consequence. 

 Students sent out from the laboratories of 

 these teachers were much more familiar 

 with sections and dissections than with 

 living, or even entire animals. Once re- 

 moved from the laboratory with its equip- 

 ment of apparatus such students were 

 quite helpless. 



They experienced in most cases great diffi- 

 culty in finding again in the field the animals 

 that had served their laboratory studies. 

 These students are the persons from among 

 whom the membership in natural history 

 societies is recruited. They are the persons 

 who stimulate, in any community, an inter- 

 est in natural history studies. These young 

 recruits were then without interest in the 

 study of living animals in their natural en- 

 vironment, while the people were, as they 

 will likely always be, without interest in 

 the laboratory study of anatomy and de- 

 velopment. That which interests the people 

 is not the dead end-product, but the living, 

 active animal, the activities of animals, 

 what they do and why they do it. 



The people at large care but little about 

 the structure even of man ; they will know 

 only what is necessary to care for the ma- 

 chine, and most of that they leave to the 

 doctors. To know the origin of the various 

 structures of man does not greatly interest 

 them. How overwhelming on the other 

 hand is their interest in man's activities. No 

 other human interest transcends it. 



But just as the structure of man has had 

 a history : just as we may trace the de- 

 velopment of his heart or brain through 



