Biological Station, can do a great servife to education at this junfture by 

 opening up our local natural history to teachers of elementai-y biologj*, and 

 by making them acquainted in a thoroughly practical way with the most use- 

 ful special methods in this field. We seem just now, indeed, in admirable po- 

 sition to lead the way along a new line of progress by helping to bring teacher 

 and pupil, under favorable conditions, into the presence of living nature out 

 of doors, adding to the metliods of the <'lass room and the laboratoiy of biology 

 those of observation, study, and instruction in the field.* 



The art of the fisli-culturist is to our waters what the art of agrif-ulture is to 

 our tillable lands. Eacli was in the beginning purely empirical, resting on a 

 small store of common knowledge gained by the cnide experience of the un- 

 educated and tlie untrained. Agi-iculture has now been largely placed on a 

 scientific foundation, and vigorous efforts are making all over the m-ilized 

 world to extend, to deepen, and to render more exact in everj- dii-ection our 

 acquaintance with the sciences whieli underlie the practice of this oldest of 

 the arts. Tlie development of fish-culture has, however, lingered far behind 

 that of its companion subject, compared with which it is indeed still in the 

 stage of barbarism. We treat the product of our natural waters with a degree 

 of intelligenee and skill scarcely above that Avhich the Indian exhibited in his 

 rude attempts at agriculture before the time of (^'olumbus. Our Biological 

 Station was founded in part with the hope of helping to do for fish-culture 

 what our forty or more agricultural experiment stations are now doing for the 

 agriculture of the United States. 



To accomplish these various ends, it was necessaiy that a subject should be 

 chosen and that a location should be found offering a suitable field for scien- 

 tific research of a kind to reward the skilled investigation with results of scien- 

 tific value, and that these results should also interest a larger public than that 

 which is prepared to appreciate and to utilize purely technical work. It was 

 essential that this location should be readily accessible from the University, 

 and that it should be attractive, comfortable, and convenient as a center of 

 operations for visiting investigators and for general and elementary students 

 of our field biology. The purposed relation to fish-culture of course required 

 that it should be on or near some lake or stream, or. better still, on some sys- 

 tem of waters including Ijoth lakes and streams in large variety and in close 

 pi'oximity. After a careful stiuly of the University environment. I selected 

 in 1894 the Illinois River and its dependent waters as our general field, and 

 the vicinity of Havana, in Mason county, as the principal seat of our opera- 

 tions. Our two years' experience here has served only to confirm our first 

 impression, that a very suitable and, indeed, highly fortunate selection had 

 been made. 



* A grenxiiiip tielil-work suninicr scliool would be ,is far alioad of laboratory work for 

 teRchers^the class who arc wrestling with nature study in thv grades— as the laboratory is 

 ahead of the old-fashioned text book. It would be a distinct advance upon anything ever at- 

 t-empted, soi far as I know, in this country. — Wilui'k S. jACK.vrAN. 



