omparatively small number of birds carefully selected, and
artistically, as well as accurately, set up; with their different ages,
their nests, their young, their eggs, and their skeletons side by side;
and in accordance with the admirable plan which is pursued in this
museum, a tablet, telling the spectator in legible characters what they
are and what they mean. For the instruction and recreation of the public
such a typical collection would be of far greater value than any
many-acred imitation of Noah's ark.

Lastly comes the question as to when biological study may best be
pursued. I do not see any valid reason why it should not be made, to a
certain extent, a part of ordinary school training. I have long
advocated this view, and I am perfectly certain that it can be carried
out with ease, and not only with ease, but with very considerable profit
to those who are taught; but then such instruction must be adapted to
the minds and needs of the scholars. They used to have a very odd way of
teaching the classical languages when I was a boy. The 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 peopl