1897.] Biology and Medicine. 757 
latter, however, which is usually, and, as we have seen, not 
quite correctly, considered to be the first of modern teaching 
laboratories, exercised the determining influence upon the 
establishment and organization of scientific laboratories in 
general. The significance of Liebig’s memorable laboratory 
is that it provided a place, furnished with the needed facilities 
and under competent direction, freely open to properly pre- 
pared students and investigators for experimental work in the 
entire field of the science to which it was devoted. Such an 
impressive illustration of the value of laboratories for instruc- 
tion and research could not fail to be followed by other depart- 
ments of science. In this movement for the establishment of 
laboratories, Germany has been from the beginning the leader, 
and by their instrumentality she has secured the palm for 
scientific education and discovery. 
We owe especially to Louis Agassiz the introduction into 
this country, fifty years ago, of laboratory methods in biologi- 
cal study, but it is only within very recent years that nearly 
the whole field of biology has been represented among us by 
laboratories worthy of the name. To the small number of 
suitably equipped biological laboratories existing in this coun- 
try those whose opening we are assembled to celebrate, make 
a most notable addition, unsurpassed, I believe, in construc- 
tion, in equipment, in plan of organization, and in opportuni- 
ties for scientific work. | 
Modern laboratories have completely revolutionized during 
the past half century the material conditions under which 
scientific work is prosecuted. They have been the great instru- 
ment of the unexampled progress of the physical and natural 
Sciences during this period. Their educational value cannot 
well be overestimated. They impart, or should impart, to the 
student something of the scientific habit of thought which is 
no less valuable in daily life and in other pursuits than in 
Science. At the present day no University can hold even a 
respectable place in the march of education and progress unless 
it is provided with suitable scientific laboratories, and it is one 
of the glories of this University that this conception prevailed 
and bore fruit at its inception. The establishment and sup- 
