1877.] On the Study of Biology. 217 
name means in the particular creature he is reading about, and 
therefore the reading is not mere reading. It is not mere repeti- 
tion of words ; but every term employed in the description, we 
will say, of a horse or of an elephant, will call up the image of 
_the things he had seen in the rabbit, and he is able to form a dis- 
tinct conception of that which he has not seen as a modification 
of that which he has seen. 
I find this system to yield excellent results, and I have no hes- 
itation whatever in saying that any one who has gone through 
such a course attentively is in a better position to form a concep- 
tion of the great truths of biology, especially of morphology 
(which is what we chiefly deal with), than if he had merely read 
all the books on that topic put together. 
The connection of this discourse with the Loan Collection of 
Scientific Apparatus arises out of the exhibition in that collection 
of aids to our laboratory work. Such of you as have visited that 
very interesting collection may have noticed a series of diagrams 
and of preparations illustrating the structure of a frog. Those 
diagrams and preparations have been made for the use of the 
students in the biological laboratory. Similar diagrams and 
preparations, illustrating the structure of all the other forms of 
life we examine, are either made or in course of preparation. 
Thus the student has before him, first, a picture of the structure 
he ought to see ; secondly, the structure itself worked out ; and if, 
with these aids, and such needful explanations and practical hints 
as a demonstrator can supply, he cannot make out the facts for 
himself in the materials supplied to him, he had better take to 
Some other pursuit than that of biological science. 
I should have been glad to have said a few words about the 
use of museums in the study of biology, but I see that my time 
1s becoming short, and I have yet another question to answer. 
Nevertheless, I must, at the risk of wearying you, say a word or 
two upon that important subject of museums. Without doubt, 
there are no helps to the study of biology, or rather to some 
branches of it, which are or may be more important than natu- 
ral-history museums ; but, in order to take this place in regard 
to biology, they must be museums of the future. The museums 
of the present do not do by any means so much for us as they 
might do. I do not wish to particularize, but I dare say many 
of you seeking knowledge, or in the laudable desire to employ a 
holiday usefully, have visited some great natural-history museum. 
ou have walked through a quarter of a mile of animals well 
