first task set you was to learn the rules of the Latin grammar in the
Latin language--that being the language you were going to learn! I
thought then that this was an odd way of learning a language, but
did not venture to rebel against the judgment of my superiors. Now,
perhaps, I am not so modest as I was then, and I allow myself to think
that it was a very absurd fashion. But it would be no less absurd, if
we were to set about teaching Biology by putting into the hands of
boys a series of definitions of the classes and orders of the animal
kingdom, and making them repeat them by heart. That is so very
favourite a method of teaching, that I sometimes fancy the spirit of
the old classical system has entered into the new scientific system, in
which case I would much rather that any pretence at scientific teaching
were abolished altogether. What really has to be done is to get into
the young mind some notion of what animal and vegetable life is. In
this matter, you have to consider practical convenience as well as
other things. There are difficulties in the way of a lot of boys making
messes with slugs and snails; it might not work in practice. But there
is a very convenient and handy animal which everybody has at hand, and
that is himself; and it is a very easy and simple matter to obtain
common plants. Hence the general truths of anatomy and physiology can
be taught to young people in a very real fashion by dealing with the
broad facts of human structure. Such viscera as they cannot very well
examine in themselves, such as hearts, lungs, and livers, may be
obtained from the nearest butcher's shop. In respect to teaching
something about the biology of plants, there is no practical
difficulty, because almost any of the common plants will do, and plants
do not make a mess--at least they do not make an unpleasant mess; so
that, in my judgment, the best form of Biology for teaching to very
young people is elementary human physiology on the one hand, and the
elements of botany on the other; beyond that I do not think it will be