4 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. [Feb. 



observe, with anxious regret, the tendency on the part of too 

 many students to rest contented with the knowledge to be 

 gained from books and from lectures, untested and unaided by 

 their own practical experiments and observations. Such a course 

 of study may make what is (erroneously in our opinion) some- 

 times called a " learned man," but it will never make a really 

 able and useful one, — it will never make a good surgeon, a good 

 anatomist, or a great naturalist, or, in the proper sense, a good 

 scholar. The course of instruction wisely adopted by Professor 

 Agassiz must in a manner force the students to investigate 

 and observe for themselves, and the result is sure to be most 

 wholesome and beneficial, both to them and to the cause of 

 science and sound education. The plan adopted by the Professor 

 of giving a distinct course of instruction to each of the special 

 students, and thereby training them to take charge severally of 

 distinct departments of the Museum, is calculated to promote 

 the progress of that Institution, and of the studies for whose 

 advancement it has been established ; but it must have involved 

 an amount of labor on the part of the instructor which increases 

 in no slight degree the obligations he has conferred upon the 

 cause of scientific education. 



It must be deemed a just subject of congratulation, both by 

 the Committee and by the public at large, that so great a desire 

 has been exhibited on the part of teachers to avail themselves 

 of the opportunity afforded them, of attending the lectures upon 

 Geology and Zoology, delivered in the Museum by Professor 

 Agassiz. From his report, we learn that upwards of two hundred 

 persons have attended these lectures, and that more than half of 

 that number were teachers. Such a fact affords much encourage- 

 ment to all who have assisted in the establishment of the Museum, 

 and indeed to all who are impressed with the value and importance 

 of the study of Natural History and the cognate sciences. 



And this leads the Committee naturally to touch upon the 

 most important part of the Professor's Eeport, for certainly few 

 will be found to deny that the institution of the noble Museum 



