Feb., 1913. 
The Queensland Naturalist. 
241 
TRANSACTIONS. 
BIOLOGY : THE SCIENCE OF LIVING THINGS. 
By H. Tryon. 
Presidential Address, Read at the Annual Meeting 
OF THE Field Naturalists’ Club of Queensland, 
25th January, 1912. 
Our being associated as members of a Field Naturalists’ 
Club, would imply special consideration for the study of living 
things, and a sense of the importance of this study. It is 
within our province, therefore, to note the value generally of 
this attitude of mind, to see how far it finds expression and 
to what extent it meets encouragement in Queensland. 
Within the present week the results of the last Senior 
Public Examination held by the Queensland University have 
been announced. From this statement it will appear that 
amongst the subjects were two dealing with living things, 
viz., Physiology and Botany. Also that of the 52 of the total 
66 candidates — all of whom save one were furnished by 
educational institutions— passes in the former subject were 
granted to two, and in the latter subject to ten ; and 
that only one student qualified in both. It may be added 
that this candidate was a woman, and that of the remaining 
eleven as many as ten were women also. More recently the 
results of the Technical College examinations _ have been 
pronounced, and these place the teaching of biological subjects 
in even still more unfavourable light. These incidents, 
especially, have prompted the selection of the topic I have 
chosen to address you on, in this my retiring a.ddress. 
With regard to the systematic study of living things, 
as a branch of education, it may be urged that it is of the very 
greatest importance from whatever point of view it be re- 
garded, — whether as an instrument for training the faculties, 
or as subserving utilitarian ends, in which respect it has 
CO ordinate rank with the special physical sciences ^physics 
and chemistry, that stand in fundamental relation to it. 
The knowledge of living things, it is needless to remark, is 
concerned with both plants and animals, and not only so, 
but with the lower forms of life, occupying the border land 
between them, and is commonly spoken of as Biology. It 
has again, as subordinate branches, Botany and Zoology ; 
but much more is implied than is commonly understood as 
a.nnoted by these terms, for we have essentially to deal with 
life and its manifestations, as well as underlying structure, 
and the developmental and other changes that it undergoes. 
