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BIENNIAL REPORT 
OF THE 
BIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 
To the 'Trustees of the University of Illinois . 
Gentlemen : The Biological Experiment Station of the 
University of Illinois was founded mainly to represent the 
university and the state in an important field of scientific investi¬ 
gation ; to do its part towards making the people of the state at 
large acquainted with the state itself; to stimulate and to aid 
the educational activities of the public schools in respect to the 
biological subjects and to reform, in some respects, their 
methods ; and to put a foundation of precise and comprehensive 
knowledge of the system of aquatic life under the practical art 
of the fish culturist, especially as this is represented by the 
operations of the fish commissions of our interior states. 
It hardly need be said that an educational institution may 
not properly assume and keep the name of university which is 
content to depend wholly on the abilities and activities of others 
for the store of knowledge which it distributes to its students, 
contributing nothing on its own part to the common stock. 
Such a condition of complete dependence marks it as at best a 
secondary school. It is also beneath the dignity of a sovereign 
state to depend wholly on others for the fundamental elements 
of its welfare, making no effort to render any return in kind. 
On the other hand, a state university owes its first duty to the 
people of its own state, and should investigate by preference 
subjects which concern their welfare. Even though it may do 
valuable work in remoter fields, it neglects its own sphere of 
essential and immediate usefulness if it lets its own territory 
remain unexplored, and its own special problems lie without 
solution. 
The teaching of biology has been for many years required 
in the public schools of Illinois, but it is a commonplace com- 
