244 The Queensland Naturalist. Vol. 1 
of higher learning, I may state as my opinion that it is not 
the case. It involves closer attention to a few living objects, 
and to what their life implies and imports, this rather than 
a superficial regard for many, in which the consideration 
of their vital characteristics, has no necessary place. It 
recognises also that science does not assist in the appre- 
hension and remembrance of a number of facts only, but in 
the systematised and correlated knowledge of these facts. 
BIOLOGY AND EDUCATION. 
Now as to the educational value of this study of living 
things, i.e.. Biology from our standpoint. 
Formally, every one possibly will, on the grounds of 
utility alone, admit, without argument, that there should 
be included in the elements of a general education, in addition 
to the “humanities*' that aim at the acquisition of a 
knowledge of what is best in thought and action, and at its 
expression, not only the principles of mathematics, of natural 
philosophy (physics), and of chemistry and their application, 
but some attention to geology (the history of the earth and 
its constituents), and to biology (including as we have seen 
zoology, botany, as branches of the study of living organ- 
isms), and, that to those who purpose pursuing “ the higher 
learning,” this especially should be so. 
The study of living things or biology, and whether 
presented in the most elementary manner, or with further 
elaboration, if comprehensively pursued, has indeed great 
educational value ; and, especially so, if presented with as 
little reference to books as possible ; but on the other hand, 
with great regard for experience and experiment, and both 
on the part of teacher and taught. 
1. It is a subject that at once appeals to the interest 
of the child, to whom living things are not only of large 
interest, but of supreme interest,- — an interest that will admit 
of ready development ; and no teacher but will admit what 
a factor in successful education, interest is. It calls forth 
and exercises every mental faculty. Those of perception, 
for example, are brought into operation in a special degree. 
Accurate and sustained observation is constantly in demand. 
The facts dealt with are those that can be verified by the 
student himself, and are not merely matters of tradition to 
be taken for granted, not again facts to be imagined or 
supposed. It recognises the importance of method and 
precision, in observation, in study, and in record. It 
exercises the mind strenuously in the methods of inductive 
reasoning ; whilst the process of arriving at conclusions by 
deduction are not lost sight. For, although, as Huxley has 
pointed out (cf. “ The Connection of the Biological Sciences 
with Medicine,” Intern. Med. Cong., 1881) all true science — 
and this applies to Biology especially — that is primarily 
