1887 | Biological Instruction in Universities, S17 . 
higher functions, would furnish just the example we stand in 
need of. It is clear enough where we ought to look for such 
examples, but it is not soclear where or when we shall find them. 
We have often heard of the “coming university,” but still it 
comes not. Men and money are all that is required to create 
such a department, and the country has both. We wait only for 
the rare conjunction of wisdom, will, and means for the realiza- 
tion of the long-postponed expectation. 
Having considered the general aims and principles which 
should determine the organization of a biological department, 
some of the more dangerous prejudices in the way of improve- 
ment, and the source and direction of reform, it remains to notice 
more precisely the ground to be covered by such a department. 
As before remarked, the nearest approach to an ideal organiza- 
tion is to be found in German universities. The biological 
sciences are distributed among five separate institutes, called, re- 
spectively, the botanical, the zoological, the physiological, the 
anatomical, and the pathological. Each institute consists of a 
spacious edifice, containing special and general laboratories pro- 
vided with instruments and other necessaries for instruction and 
investigation, lecture-rooms, library,and museum. The zoologi- 
cal institute has, besides, its aquaria, terraria, and garden; and 
the botanical institute has, of course, its experimental garden. At 
the head of the official staff of each institute is the professor, with 
two or more able assistants, and other subordinates trained to aid 
in laboratory work. But this is not all, for we often find as many 
as three or four, and sometimes as many as five or six, professors, 
ranking as ordinary, ordinary and honorary, and extraordinary, 
all engaged in the work of a single institute. It is a common 
thing to find the lecture-work in any given subject divided among 
three or four eminent investigators, in such a manner that each 
special side of the subject has its special course of lectures ex- 
- tending through one or more entire semesters. This is the case, 
for example, with histology and embryology, subjects which are 
often pointed out in this country as the dangerous extremes 
of specialization. This division of labor has thus been carried 
much farther than a superficial glance would lead one to suppose. 
And has this principle been carried too far? and are there now 
signs of a reaction? Absolutely nothing of the kind. On the 
contrary, the marvellous rapidity with which the biological sci- 
VOL. XXI.—NO. 6. 35 
