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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 215 



so unusual, but nothing so desirable in education, 

 "wbose purpose is, not to make things easy, but to ., 

 strengthen ability to master difficult ones. It is just 

 this training which zoology should furnish. 



It may be set down as certain that in the brief time 

 usually allotted to zoology in college no student can 

 master both the technique of zoology and a complete 

 survey of the classification. It is also certain that he 

 cannot acqiiire without laboratory work a zoologist's 

 conception of, we will say, a crustacean. He may 

 dissect a cray-fish and then be informed that it is a 

 crustacean, in which case he merely understands the 

 terms ' cray-fish ' and ' crustacean ' to be synonymous. 

 But let him take a cray-fish or lobster for his first 

 study ; let him dissect it and study its cellular struc- 

 ture ; let him study its larval stages. From it let 

 him go to other macrourans and compare their forms, 

 all the way from Gebia to Hippa. Let him have access 

 to the systematic treatise, and hunt out the genus and 

 species. Let him compare it with the schizopod and 

 the crab, and with the megalops of the crab, and he 

 will then form some adequate conception of the 

 zoologist's meaning of a crustacean. 



We believe this to be the true way to teach zool- 

 ogy, for we doubt the value to a man of a mass of 

 indefinite ill-digested text-book information. Occa- 

 sionally an omnivore can take in every thing, and 

 digest and so metabolize it as to organize it into 

 healthy mental tissue. They are, however, the few. 



If the requirement of zoology from a text-book be 

 such as this outline would indicate, obviously no 

 text-book can ever fully meet it. For the systematic 

 work no smattering key but the original description 

 should be consulted if possible. Upon the anatomy 

 and histology the student should have the use of 

 original articles, monographs, etc. This is, however, 

 not always possible, but the nearest appi'oach to it 

 should be the chosen course. Sedgwick and Wil- 

 son's work comes the nearest to being such a text- 

 book of any with which we are familiar. We should 

 have preferred the selection of some animal with a 

 larger circle of cousins and other relatives, both near 

 and distant, and think that a crustacean or a coelen- 

 terate might be taken to exhibit better the science. 



It will mark a long stride of improvement for the 

 science of zoology when teachers and examiners will 

 be content to allow the student to become broad 

 only after he has been narrow, in place of exacting of 

 him a large amotint of varied information which is 

 only skin deep, will foster and encourage methods of 

 work which will make him the master of the facts. 

 The real test of the merit of a zoological student 

 should be made to lie in what he can do, how much 

 he can see, — his ability to demonstrate facts in 

 zoological science, and not merely or chiefly, as at 

 present too largely, in how much he knows. 



L. H. 



Elementary instruction in zoology. 



Seldom have I read an article, among the many that 

 have been recently published dealing with that all- 

 important question as to why biology should con- 

 stitute one of the leading educational branches in 

 the schools and universities, with more interest than 

 I did the one contributed by Prof. H. W. Conn, and 

 published in the issue of Science which appeared 

 upon the 18th of last month. 



To my mind, it not only presents in the most 

 masterly manner why biology should be introduced 

 into the curriculum of every grade of school, from 



the primary classes to the university, but how, within 

 the near future, such a happy result will with great 

 certainty come about. 



I can remember very well how, a number of years 

 ago, I read with the keenest interest all of Huxley's 

 now classical essays upon this subject, and watched 

 the untiring efforts of his to force upon the attention 

 of those in authority in educational matters in Eng- 

 land the prime importance of an early introduction 

 of the biological studies not only into the graded 

 schools, but into the curriculum of every university. 



There are many, many teachers and educator's in 

 this country to-day that now hold the views of Huxley 

 in nearly all essential particulars ; and those who 

 have thoughtfully followed, step by step, the growth 

 of the natural sciences with us, since the early days 

 of this century to the jaresent hour, know full well 

 that the time is not far distant when the education of 

 the individual will by no means be considered a 

 liberal one, unless itcomprehendsa very clear under- 

 standing of the principles of biology in their widest 

 sense. 



For more than a quarter of a century it has been 

 my good fortune to have been able, in common with 

 others of mj'^ date in the fields of science, to watch 

 and stiidy the several highly interesting phases 

 through which the natural sciences have successively 

 passed. These phases seem to divide themselves 

 naturally into three quite well-marked stages ; and 

 these stages may be characterized by comparing 

 them with the way in which any animal or group of 

 animals has been studied. In times gone by, natxaral- 

 ists dealt first with the mere description of animals, 

 — the narrative stage, as it were, — and the literature 

 of the siibject partook almost exclusively of this 

 style of treatment. But as the knowledge of ani- 

 mals became more accurate, and freed of its myth- 

 ical taint, why, then the needs of the minds of men 

 demanded more than this, and the subject naturally 

 passed into its second stage, and the study became 

 highly classificatory. Classification reduced the 

 enormous amoiant of almost chaotic descriptive 

 literature to order and system. Next the study of 

 the natural sciences gradually passed into its third 

 and present stage, wherein classification is being 

 checked and corrected by the wide-spread attention 

 that is being devoted to the subject of structure, — 

 the morphology of animals. It is needless for me to 

 add here that the outcome of the present phase is 

 slowly bringing to light a knowledge of the funda- 

 mental life-principles of organized nature, and an 

 understanding of the universal laws that apply to 

 the whole. 



As the pressure of the necessity for the teaching 

 of biology in the schools became greater and greater 

 in recent times, it was soon followed by the outcrop- 

 ping of the text-books to be used for the purpose ; 

 and it has been with the very deepest interest possi- 

 ble that I have studied the casting of these very vol- 

 umes. Some of them have still clinging to their pages 

 many of the traces of the ' narrative ' phase of the 

 science ; others are largely classificatory ; while still 

 others, intended even for the youngest minds, deal 

 chiefly with morphology, — with healthy hints of a 

 juvenile calibre, at the imderlying principles of life, 

 judiciously introduced. 



From this point, space now demands that I be brief 

 in my remarks; and I will, in concluding, simply 

 present my matured views upon the subject of ele- 

 mentary teaching in biology, irrespective of any of 



