92 EDUCATION OF A MAN OF SCIENCE 



advanced class on the anatomy of plants at Cam- 

 bridge. He gave out specimens which the students 

 had never seen ; these had to be investigated, and 

 they had to give viva voce accounts of their dis- 

 coveries to the rest of the class. I beheve this 

 to be a method worth imitating, and I may say 

 as an encouragement to women teachers that it was 

 a Newnham student who was especially distinguished 

 in this mutual instruction class. 



When I left Cambridge and became a medical 

 student in London, I had the luck to work in the 

 laboratory of Dr. Klein, who was then head of the 

 Brown Institute at Nine Elms. He was fresh from 

 Vienna, with all the continental traditions in favour 

 of original research. Even in the ordinary labora- 

 tory work I remember how he tried to throw the 

 I'omance of practicahty over my task. He rushed 

 in one day with a large bread-knife stained with 

 blood in the most sinister manner, saying that a 

 murder had occurred in South Lambeth, and it was 

 for me to determine whether or no the red fluid 

 on the blade was blood I 



Later on he set me to work investigating inflam- 

 mation, and I can still remember his praise of the 

 harmless little paper I wrote. To my secret satis- 

 faction he blamed me for the severity of my 

 remarks on a German Professor who had written 

 on the subject. He told me to strike out my 

 criticism, though he allowed it to be just. I 

 sighed as an author, but obeyed as a pupil, — to 

 misquote the words of Gibbon. 



Education is often spoken of, and is praised or 

 blamed, as a method of imparting information to 



