332 The Study of Zodlogy in Germany. [June, 
tific training, rendered still more effectual because they volun- 
tarily attend several extra courses. 
The quality of the education in each branch depends mainly 
upon the character and the ability of the professor, and therefore 
we find the students passing from one university to another in 
order to attend the courses of some particular professor. This 
they can do the more readily because immatriculation at one 
university gives them the right to enter another upon merely 
presenting their certificates from the first. All the universities are 
so much alike that it is quite possible to break off from a course 
at the end of the semester and go elsewhere to complete it. In 
this way various masters of the same science influence the learn- 
ers, and the one-sidedness of one teacher is counteracted by an- 
other. This seems to the writer an advantage which can ‘hardly 
be overestimated. 
After these brief general remarks we pass to the consideration 
of the zodlogical work, strictly speaking. First of all we notice 
the advantage of the secure basis upon which is built up the 
superstructure of special zodlogical knowledge, thus giving every 
student an initial advantage which we regret to say is rare in this 
country. 
The professor of zodlogy delivers two regular courses of lectures 
every year, one semester on general zodlogy or comparative anat- 
omy, and during the second another on special zodlogy, including 
classification. In the first course he expounds the fundamental 
characters of animals, their microscopic and comparative anatomy, 
embryology, physiology, and so forth. This, it will be seen at 
once, is a different plan from that usually followed in this coun- 
try, where zoélogical instruction subordinates everything to clas- 
sification. There can, we think, be no doubt which is the bet- 
ter way. Fortunately, the old system is slowly disappearing in 
America as well. 
Besides the professor there are usually one or two privat- 
docents who, just beginning as instructors, take up some special 
branch of zoélogy and offer more detailed information than the 
professor can crowd into his general lectures. 
But the main activity of the student is not found in the 
lecture room but in the laboratory: there he spends most of his 
time, and there he acquires his most valuable knowledge, learn- 
ing to dissect and to use the microscope, and making the ac- 
quaintance of the principal forms of animal life. The professor 
and his assistants are constantly at hand to guide and suggest, 
