Text Book of Biology, Part 1: VertebrataWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Science
Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Biology -- Textbooks
Note on Making Comparisons
Syllabus of Practical Work
{Contents part 2}
Key for Dissection Sheets, and Abbreviations
-Introduction_
In the year 1884 I was invited to give tuition by correspondence, in
Biology. Although disposed at the time to ridicule the idea of
imparting instruction in natural science by letter, I gladly accepted
the opportunity thus afforded me of ascertaining for myself what
could and could not be accomplished in that direction. Anyone
familiar with the scope of biological enquiry, and the methods of
biological instruction, will not need to be reminded that it is only by
the most rigorous employment of precise directions for observation,
that any good results are to be looked for at the hand of the
elementary student. True to this principle, I determined to issue to
my correspondence pupils rigid instructions, and to demand in return
faithful annotated drawings of facts observed in their usage. In the
case of two among the few students who passed through my hands,
the result far exceeded my most sanguine anticipations. The notes
sent in by one of them-- a man working at a distance, alone and
unaided-- far excelled those wrung from many a student placed
under the most favourable surroundings; and their promise for the
future has been fulfilled to the utmost, the individual in question
being now a recognised investigator. It thus became clear that,
not-with-standing the complex conditions of work in the biological
field, tuition by correspondence would suffice to awaken the latent
abilities of a naturally qualified enquirer. The average members of a
University Correspondence Class will be found neither better nor
worse than those of any other, and they may therefore pass
unnoticed; if however, the correspondence system of tuition may
furnish the means of arousing a latent aptitude, when the
possibilities of other methods of approach are excluded-- and in
so doing, of elevating the individual to that position for which he was
by nature qualified, ensuring him the introduction to the one sphere
of labour for which he was born-- it will have created its own defence,
and have merited the confidence of all right-thinking people. The
plucking of one such brand from the burning is ample compensation
for the energy expended on any number of average dullards, who but
require to be left alone to find their natural level.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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