4o6 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxvi 



content myself, for many years, with what seemed the next best 

 thing, namely, as full an exposition as I could give, of the char- 

 acters of certain plants and animals, selected as types of vege- 

 table and animal organisation, by way of introduction to sys- 

 tematic zoology and paleontology. 



There was no laboratory work, but he would show an 

 experiment or a dissection during the lecture or perhaps 

 for a few minutes after, when the audience crowded round 

 the lecture table. 



The opportunity came in 1871. As he afterwards im- 

 pressed upon the great city companies in regard to technical 

 education, the teaching of science throughout the country 

 turned upon the supply of trained teachers. The part to be 

 played by elementary science under the Education Act of 

 1870, added urgency to the question of proper teaching. 

 With this in view, he organised a course of instruction for 

 those who had been preparing pupils for the examinations 

 of the Science and Art Department, " scientific mission- 

 aries," as he described them to Dr. Dohrn. 



In the promotion of the practical teaching of biology (writes 

 the late Jeffery Parker, Nat. Set. viii. 49), Huxley's services 

 can hardly be overestimated. Botanists had always been in the 

 habit of distributing flowers to their students, which they could 

 dissect or not as they chose; animal histology was taught in 

 many colleges under the name of practical physiology; and at 

 Oxford an excellent system of zoological work had been estab- 

 lished by the late Professor Rolleston.* But the biological 

 laboratory, as it is now understood, may be said to date from 

 about 1870, when Huxley, with the co-operation of Professors 



*" Rolleston (Professor Lankester writes to me) was the first to 

 systematically conduct the study of Zoology and Comparative Anat- 

 omy in this country by making use of a carefully selected series of 

 animals. His ' types ' were the Rat, the Common Pigeon, the Frog, 

 the Perch, the Crayfish, Blackbeetle, Anodon, Snail, Earthworm, 

 Leech, Tapeworm. He had a series of dissections of these mounted, 

 also loose dissections and elaborate MS. descriptions. The student 

 went through this series, dissecting fresh specimens for himself. 

 After some ten years' experience Rolleston printed his MS. directions 

 and notes as a book, called Forms of Animal Life. 



"This all preceded the practical class at South Kensington in 1871. 

 I have no doubt that Rolleston was influenced in his plan by your 



