36 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



seen in the field or on the sea-shore. There could scarcely 

 be a more open-air investigation than that which Mr. 

 Hornell and I had to make last year on the condition of 

 the pearl-oyster hanks in the Gulf of Manaar 10 to 20 

 miles away from land ; and yet we very soon found that a 

 laboratory was absolutely essential to complete our work 

 done at sea. That is why biological nature-study can only 

 be carried on to a certain limited extent in the open, and 

 therefore ought always to be connected with a laboratory 

 although much of the work may be done outside. 



I was struck when visiting a few years ago some of the 

 chief educational institutions of America at what I heard 

 from Professor Whitman of Chicago in regard to the large 

 summer class for school teachers which he had organised 

 at the Woods Holl Biological Station on the coast of 

 Massachusetts. There was gathered together a class of at 

 that time 120, since increased I believe to a larger 

 number ; and these were not, I understood, teachers of 

 science alone, but teachers of all kinds, some from the 

 large towns and some from small and remote country 

 schools. They were spending a part at least of their 

 vacation at this research institution, not so much because 

 of the mere facts acquired as because of the insight it gave 

 them into nature, the new world of thought it opened up, 

 and, as I heard it expressed, the mental refreshment it 

 gave their jaded spirits. That is what we should like to 

 supply to the school teachers of Liverpool. There is no 

 reason why our Biological Stations here should not be 

 utilised in the same way as they are in America if our 

 Education Committees will take the matter up and 

 organise vacation courses for teachers. 



The study of Biology, especially such open-air 

 experimental Biology as I speak of in connection with 

 biological stations, has ramifications in all directions and 



