and I have no hesitation
whatever in saying, that any one who has gone through such a course,
attentively, is in a better position to form a conception of the great
truths of Biology, especially of morphology (which is what we chiefly
deal with), than if he had merely read all the books on that topic put
together.

The connection of this discourse with the Loan Collection of Scientific
Apparatus arises out of the exhibition in that collection of certain
aids to our laboratory work. Such of you as have visited that very
interesting collection may have noticed a series of diagrams and of
preparations illustrating the structure of a frog. Those diagrams and
preparations have been made for the use of the students in the
biological laboratory. Similar diagrams and preparations illustrating
the structure of all the other forms of life we examine, are either made
or in course of preparation. Thus the student has before him, first, a
picture of the structure he ought to see; secondly, the structure itself
worked out; and if with these aids, and such needful explanations and
practical hints as a demonstrator can supply, he cannot make out the
facts for himself in the materials supplied to him, he had better take
to some other pursuit than that of biological science.

I should have been glad to have said a few words about the use of
museums in the study of Biology, but I see that my time is becoming
short, and I have yet another question to answer. Nevertheless I must,
at the risk of wearying you, say a word or two upon the important
subject of museums. Without doubt there are no helps to the study of
Biology, or rather to some branches of it, which are, or may be, more
important than natural history museums; but, in order to take this place
in regard to Biology, they must be museums of the future. The museums of
the present do not, by any means, do so much for us as they might do. I
do not wish to particularise, but I dare say many of you, seeking
knowledge, or in the laudable desire to employ a holiday usefully, have
visited some great natural history museum. You have walked through a
quarter of a mile of animals, more or less well stuffed, with their long
names written out underneath them; and, unless your experience is very
different from that of most people, the upshot of it all is that you
leave that splendid pile with sore feet, a bad headache, and a general
idea that the animal kingdom is a "mighty maze without a plan."