Sir Michael Foster. lxxv 
particular line of research on which each was engaged was the one thing in 
life worth doing, and that the only place to do it was in Cambridge by Foster’s 
side. As Foster used to say, the true man of science must feel with respect 
to his own research that “in this way only lies salvation.” It was that 
feeling that he had so pre-eminently the power of raising in a man. 
Soon the fame of the Cambridge Biological School began to spread over 
the country, and a very rapid increase in the number of medical and 
scientific students took place. The makeshift buildings in which Foster, 
Balfour, and Vines had up to this time taught their students were hopelessly 
inadequate, and new laboratories were a crying need. With the help of his 
friends, especially Coutts Trotter, Balfour, H. Sidgwick, J. W. Clark, and 
Newton, the University was persuaded to build a biological laboratory, which 
was completed in 1878. Subsequently this laboratory was extended so as 
to give more room for physiology and zoology, and quite recently a splendid 
botanical laboratory has been erected. 
In 1883, consequent on the Report of the Royal Commission, a professor- 
ship of physiology was founded, and Foster was elected to the chair; the 
complete degree of M.A. was conferred upon him, and at last, after 13 years, 
he was able to speak for himself in the Administrative Boards of the 
University. 
In 1872 he married Margaret, the daughter of Mr. Rust, Cromwell House, 
Huntingdon, who survives him. 
Foster held very strong views as to the proper method of teaching 
physiology to students at the beginning of their medical study. He held it 
to be a mistake to demonstrate during the lecture, and insisted that practical 
work, carried on by the student himself, illustrative of the facts on which 
the lecture was based, must immediately follow the lecture. The physiology 
of each organ must be dealt with as a whole in lecture, and the practical work 
must be so arranged as to bring home to the student all the points of each 
lecture at the time, and not to be regardless of the lecture, as must be the 
case if the practical work is departmental while the lecture course is general. 
His ideal laboratory would be of sufficient size to provide every student 
with his own working place, both in the histological and in the chemical 
department at the same time. He also—and this was one of the great 
reasons of his success—encouraged his pupils at the very earliest moment to 
engage in some original research, and then persuaded them te give a few 
lectures of an advanced character upon the subject on which they were 
working ; for, as he said, there is no way of discovering the gaps in your 
knowledge of a subject better than lecturing on it. In this way he associated 
with himself a band of younger workers engaged in research, who gave the 
advanced teaching to the students, thus allowing him to confine himself to 
the introductory course. 
In the researches suggested to the students and in the minds of his students 
themselyes, he always inculcated the close connection between the physiology 
of all living organisms, insisting upon physiology being a branch of zoology 
