MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
147 
in one or two subjects, the principle of classification can be applied to other 
subjects and be used as a tool to make further acquisitions of power in other 
directions. 
Botany and zoology are the classificatory sciences par excellence. Here 
the principles of classification have been worked out with a minuteness and 
fullness of detail observed in no other subjects. Here if anywhere the stu- 
dent must get his knowledge of those principles. In my opinion, botany 
and zoology must rest their claims for introduction into a course of study 
upon the fact that they are classificatory sciences, and any attempt to sub- 
stitute some other element than classification as a basis for the work in those 
subjects, is to discard an element of greater importance for one of a less. 
I am not unmindful of the fact that both subjects include many depart- 
ments in which the element of classification is not at all the conspicuous 
process. Such are the departments of physiology, histology, cytology, 
paleontology, embryology and ecology. Each of these may be taken as 
the basis of knowledge of animals and plants. My contention is that in an 
elementary course, where the purpose is purely educational, it is highly inju- 
dicious to make anything but taxonomy the basis of the work. The other 
departments are tributary to this and should be so recognized. They are 
highly specialized departments, and can scarcely be studied in their full 
significance without some knowledge of the taxonomic relations of the forms 
used as types. 
This digression upon classification started from the statement that the 
selection of a type depends upon what it typifies. In botany and zoology 
we have classified groups of different rank, rising through the series of indi- 
vidual, species, genus, family, order, class, branch and kingdom, each with 
many subdivisions. A complete scheme of systematic study would lead 
us to select a type of a species, a type of a genus, a type of a family, a type 
of an order, a type of a class, a type of a branch and a type of a kingdom. 
The logical sequence and the relative significance of these groups can be 
determined only if our first animal studied shall serve successively as the 
type of each. By this process we begin with the individual as an individual 
and rise by successive generalizations through the less comprehensive groups, 
to the all-inclusive group of animal kingdom. I know of no one who will 
undertake, with a high school class, to use an amoeba as the type of a species, 
a genus, a family, an order or even a class. It is generally used as a type of 
animal, thus beginning with the most comprehensive group and proceeding 
in a deductive order, or not obtaining from the subject the content I would 
suggest as one of the most important things to be obtained from it, viz., 
a knowledge of the principles of classification and the full significance of 
type study. 
Besides this, we must decide of what an individual shall be a type 
before we can decide what characters are of sufficient importance- 
to demand the attention of the learner. An animal is at first only an 
individual, and as such has some thousands of characteristics. No one will 
be rash enough to undertake a complete catalogue of all the characters pos- 
sessed by a single individual. Different writers of laboratory guides will 
cause a pupil to see different numbers of these characteristics, some more 
and some fewer. A college student may be called upon to see fifty and a 
pupil in the grammar grades to see only five. But upon what basis is the 
number of characteristics to be observed determined. There is scarcely 
more value in seeing fifty than in seeing five, unless the characters to be 
observed are selected with a reasonable and sufficient end in view. To add 
