4 
plaint that this work is far less valuable than it should be, and 
that its progress is grievously hampered because most of our 
teachers of science have a very imperfect acquaintance with the 
subject matter which should be taught and with the most fruit¬ 
ful methods of biological instruction. The University of Illinois, 
through its Biological Station, can do a great service to educa¬ 
tion at this juncture by opening up our local natural history to 
teachers of elementary biology, and by making them ac¬ 
quainted in a thoroughly practical way with the most useful 
special methods in this field. We seem just now, indeed, in 
admirable position to lead the way along a new line of progress 
by helping to bring teacher and pupil, under favorable condi¬ 
tions, into the presence of living nature out of doors, adding to 
the methods of the class room and the laboratory of biology 
those of observation, study, and instruction in the field. 
The art of the fisli-culturist is to our waters what the art 
of agriculture is to our tillable lands. Each was in the begin¬ 
ning purely empirical, resting on a small store of common 
knowledge gained by the crude experience of the uneducated 
and the untrained. Agriculture has now been largely placed 
on a scientific foundation, and vigorous efforts are making all 
over the civilized world to extend, to deepen, and to render 
more exact in every direction our acquaintance with the sciences 
which underlie the practice of this oldest of the arts. The 
development of fisli-culture has, however, lingered far behind 
that of its companion subject, compared with which it is indeed 
still in the stage of barbarism. We treat the product of our 
natural waters with a degree of intelligence and skill scarcely 
above that which the Indian exhibited in his rude attempts at 
agriculture before the time of Columbus. Our Biological Sta¬ 
tion was founded in part with the hope of helping to do for 
fish-culture wliat our forty or more agricultural experiment 
stations are now doing for the agriculture of the United States. 
To accomplish these various ends, it was necessary that a 
subject should be chosen and that a location should be found 
offering a suitable field for scientific research of a kind to 
reward the skilled investigator with results of scientific value, 
and that these results should also interest a larger public than 
that which is prepared to appreciate and to utilize purely 
technical work. It was essential that this location should be 
