SPECIAL REPORT 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



To the Trustees of the University of Illinois. 



Gentlemen: The Biological Experiment Station of the University of Illi- 

 nois was founded mainly to represent the University and the State in an im- 

 portant field of Scientific investigation; to do its part towards making the 

 people of the state at large acquainted with the State itself, to stimulate and 

 to aid the educational activities of the public schools in respect to the biolog- 

 ical subjects and to reform, in some respects, their methods; and to put a 

 foundation of precise and comprehensive knowledge of the system of aquatic 

 life under the practical art of the flsh-culturist, especially as this is repre- 

 sented by the operations of the Fish Commissions of our interior states. 



It hardly need be said that an educational institution may not properly- as- 

 ?>ume and keep the name of university which is content to depend wholly on 

 the abilities and activities of others for the store of knowledge which it dis- 

 tributes to its students, contributing nothing on its own part to the common 

 stock. Such a condition of complete dependence marks it as at best a second- 

 ary school. It is also beneath the dignity of a sovereign state to depend 

 wholly on others for the fundamental elements of its welfare, making no effort 

 to render any return in kind. On the other hand, a state university owes its 

 first duty to the people of its own state, and should investigate by preference 

 subjects which concern their welfare. Even though it mav do valuable work 

 in remoter fields, it neglects its own sphere of essential and immediate useful- 

 ness if it lets its own territory remain unexplored, and its own special prob- 

 lems lie without solution. 



The teaching of biology has been for many years recj[uired in the public 

 schools of Illinois, but it is a commonplace complaint that this work is far less 

 valuable than it should be, and that its progress is grievously hampered be- 

 cause most of our teachers of science have a very imperfect acquaintance 

 with the subject matter which should be tauglit and with the most fruitful 

 methods of biol(»gical instruction. The University of Illint)is, through its 



