JUNE 20, 1884.] 
life of the country, —a view which, in our time, is no 
longer held. Even after the middle of this century, 
universities were looked upon in this country, merely 
as places for the dissemination of knowledge, where 
young people were instructed in the higher branches 
of science. To this end the entire activity of the 
universities was directed: indeed, the work of the 
university consisted simply in the delivery of lec- 
. tures by professors, who undertook to acquaint their 
hearers with the last results of science, while the 
students were merely passive recipients. The pro- 
fessors were not required to do real scientific work, 
which at the present time alone constitutes true 
learning: such work was left to a select few, and it 
seldom emerged from the seclusion of the cabinet 
into close contact with the audience. It is charac- 
teristic of those times that such occupations were 
called the crude preparatory work. I myself have 
heard a learned man of that epoch (since dead) 
seriously call himself a ‘laborer,’ in contradistine- 
tion to the orator-professors. 
The results obtained were such as might have been 
anticipated with this disposition of the public mind. 
Instruction by lectures was the chief aim: inde- 
pendent scientific work, although esteemed, was not 
obligatory, and was considered a matter to be left to 
personal predilection. 
There were, of course, exceptions to this rule. 
Thus, for instance, the faculty of natural science at 
the St. Petersburg university showed some signs of 
organic scientific life, even during this period. This, 
however, was a consequence of the continuous close 
relations between the university and the neighbor- 
ing academy, where science was practically cultivated, 
so to speak, by legal requirement. Some of the chairs 
of natural science in the university were occupied by 
academicians; others, by persons closely connected 
with the academy: for this reason we here find all 
the indications of a true scientific life. Besides the 
museums and the chemical laboratory, there were 
introduced into the university laboratories of some 
sort for other branches; some practical work in 
botany and zodlogy was required from the students; 
to a chosen few the physical laboratory of the acad- 
emy of science was open; and even the old chemist 
Solovyoff himself superintended the practical exer- 
cises of the students. Tsenkofsky’s teacher, Shi- 
khofsky, with the aid of a single microscope, had to 
instruct his pupils in making microscopic observa- 
tions; but he left behind him a pupil who has won a 
great reputation by his microscopic investigations. 
We see, then, that, during the generation preced- 
ing our own, the whole condition of university life 
was any thing but favorable to the development of 
naturalscience. Atthat time, even Germany, whence 
our learning has been derived, probably had not yet 
fully awakened to the idea, that, to properly fulfil 
their purpose of disseminating knowledge, univer- 
sities ought to be, not only institutions where science 
is rhetorically expounded, but also centres for devel- 
oping and advancing scientific work. The old and 
simple belief that teaching, as well as learning, can 
be made successful only through real work, did not 
SCIENCE. 
197 
secure a broad, practical recognition in Germany 
before the sixth decade of the present century, when 
rich laboratories for natural science came to be con- 
sidered indispensable attributes of a university. It 
is true that laboratories of some kind did exist in 
western Europe in former times; but their origin 
was due to local causes, accidental in character: they 
sprang up wherever a prominent worker in science 
had gathered pupils around him. The laboratories of 
our time have a much broader significance: as indis- 
pensable attributes of every university, they change 
the whole system of instruction; as institutions 
adapted to the practical working-out of scientific 
problems by many individual investigators, they 
superseded the closet of the student, and introduced 
to learners the very process of the building-up of 
science; as schools for practical instruction, labora- 
tories materially raise the level of education among 
the masses; as working-centres where science is ad- 
vanced, not by individual, but by united efforts, they 
materially increase the scientific productivity of the 
country. In Germany their importance is so fully 
recognized, that, even in universities of the second 
rank, hundreds of thousands of roubles are expended 
on the construction of laboratories in connection with 
the various chairs. 
Hence it will readily be perceived what an immense 
service was rendered Russian science by the reform 
of our universities in the seventh decade of our cen- 
tury, when laboratories were established in connec- 
tion with the faculties of medicine and of natural 
science, and provided with the necessary means, the 
staff of instructors being correspondingly increased. 
Another beneficent measure was the greater facility 
afforded private persons of leaving the country to 
study abroad, and the increased frequency with which 
the government sent young people abroad for the 
same purpose. Thislast measure, though long before 
in vogue by the universities for preparing their pro- 
fessors, at that time became even more necessary; 
for while, between 1848 and 1856, the ordering of 
students abroad had entirely ceased, by the new regu- 
lations the number of instructors was enlarged. I 
shall hardly err if I say that about one-half of the 
present professors in the faculties of medicine and 
of natural science have come from those young men 
who went abroad between 1856 and 1865. 
The increase in the number of workers in natural 
science during the period under discussion appears 
most clearly from the formation of societies of 
naturalists at the universities. In the preceding 
period there were but two such societies in existence 
in Russia, — the mineralogical society at St. Peters- 
burg, and the Moscow society of naturalists. At 
present there are, at the universities, seven societies 
of naturalists. Besides these, we have the Russian 
entomological society, and the societies at Yaroslavl, 
Ekaterinburg, Tashként, and Tiflis. 
General confirmation of this opinion, respecting the 
increase in the number of workers in natural science, 
is found in our periodical congresses of naturalists. 
After the first congress, societies of naturalists organ- 
ized at the universities; and the geological, zodlogi- 
