s 
510 _ Biological Instruction in Universities. [June 
compare the best organized biological department this country 
affords with that found in the best German universities. The 
student who repairs to Berlin, Leipzig, Heidelberg, Würzburg, 
Freiburg, Munich, and Jena, finds there institutions that aim to 
make good the title they wear,—institutions that strive to repre-: 
sent every department of knowledge at its best, and to provide 
room for every form of intellectual activity. Whatever his special 
bent, he finds in the lecture-courses and the laboratories precisely 
what he needs. Representing his specialty, he sees men known 
and revered. throughout the scientific world for their contribu- 
tions to knowledge. He is recognized, not as an irresponsible 
school-boy, to be marked for absences, ranked for recitations, and 
rewarded, after a prescribed number of years of study and decent 
behavior, with a “ graduating” degree; but asa man who knows, 
‘or ought to know, his purpose, and who, if he ever expects to 
attain the distinction of a degree, must demonstrate his eligibility 
thereto by making some worthy contribution to the advancement 
of knowledge in his own chosen field. Professor and student 
both work together to the same great end —the advancement of 
science. The influences surrounding one arouse every latent 
energy, and kindle a love and zeal for work that fairly blaze with 
enthusiasm. The ideal catholicity of aim that everywhere pre- 
vails, and the whole-souled consecration of energy to research, 
create an intellectual atmosphere that is all aglow with inspira- 
tion. And what an imposing array of scholarship is here organ- 
ized for pushing on the work of each department! Does not the 
enormous productivity of the twenty-one workshops of science 
represented in the universities of the German empire proclaim 
with an emphasis that makes argument superfluous, the impor- 
tance of high aims in the organization of each and every depart- 
ment of instruction? In Germany, as here and everywhere, the 
character of the preparatory schools is determined by that of the 
academic system. But university influence does not stop with 
the enforcement of eight or nine years of rigid discipline in the 
‘gymnasium ; it pervades the entire school-system, and is thus in — 
a very large measure directly responsible’ for the methods and 
courses of instruction pursued. 
The simple secret of this dominating influence is devotion to. 
research as the prime means and the chief end of higher educa- 
tion. It is this same crowning feature which creates and keeps _ 
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