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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXXVII. 



is often fresh air. How far this falls short of the individual 

 work that maybe done in the school garden or at the labora- 

 tory table ! The too common result of giving suggestions for 

 seeing things that there is no opportunity for seeing is a relapse 

 to book-and-recitation methods. 



The field laboratories of the universities offer for the most 

 part excellent opportunities both in natural environment and in 

 facilities for its study ; but these are far from home and available 



only in the summer vacation, and the rank and file of university 

 students miss altogether the sort of training they afford. 



Very little is heard of the movement toward the utilization of 

 living nature in college work, yet it is exerting a powerful influ- 

 ence over present methods. The anatomical work which was 

 the beginning, the continuation and the end of the old time 



given credit for having laid out the first practical laboratory 

 courses — no longer monopolizes all the time of the general 

 student. The elements of biology that make for culture are- 

 far from being confined to the dissecting table. And more and 

 more college students are being encouraged to study nature in 

 the field and by those methods that in the last century yielded 

 our most important generalizations. 



