Dec., 1901.] 
Meeting of the Biological Club. 
1 53 
tion from pure fiction to pure science may be found and every 
grade of literary merit as well. White and Goldsmith, Wood 
and Figuier, Kipling and Seton-Thompson, with many others 
that could be cited, illustrate this wide divergence among writers 
who have written to the entertainment and the greater or less 
profit of their readers. The value of such works as these is 
rather hard to estimate, especially from the scientific standpoint 
and particularly when one is under the hallucination of a beauti- 
ful piece of literary creation. They furnish entertainment and 
cultivate imagination, some of them stimulate observation and 
awaken an interest in nature, but unfortunately many of them 
contain so much that is inexact or erroneous that the}’ may sadly 
encumber the minds of their readers. 
But I would like to call attention here to what appears to me a 
fundamental condition of scientific work and thereby a necessary 
result of scientific training. Science is naught if not exact. 
Accurate observation, accurate record, accurate deduction from 
data, all of which may be reduced to simple, plain honesty. 
Anything else is error, not science. It is not that “ honesty is 
the best policy,” but that in science honesty is the only possible 
policy. Hence, scientific training should give to every student 
this one at least of the cardinal virtues, and we may claim with 
justice this advantage as one of the results to be derived from 
pursuing scientific studies. In fact the relation of science and 
biological science, no less than any other, to general schemes of 
education, has been one of its most important contributions to 
humanity. 
Biology has influenced modern education both in the matter 
taught and the method of its presentation. It has gone farther 
and farther into the mysteries of nature and opened up wider 
fields of knowledge. It has insisted that the student should be 
trained not only in the facts and the accurate interpretation of 
facts, but in the methods by which facts may be obtained, thus 
providing for the continuous growth of the substance from which 
its principles may be verified and definite conclusions reached. 
In recent years there has been a wide demand for the more 
general distribution of knowledge of nature, and “ nature study ” 
has had a prominent place in the discussions of educators. I 
must confess to some fear for the outcome of well meant efforts 
to crowd such studies into the hands of unprepared teachers, 
though surely no one could wish more heartily for a wider exten- 
sion of such work well done. It is encouraging to note steady 
progress in this line and we should be content not to push ahead 
faster than conditions will warrant. 
Our science is an evergrowing one, and I wish to mention 
briefly some of the conditions of biological research and the con- 
ditions essential to its successful prosecution. The time has 
