Leisure-time studies, chiefly biological : a series of essays and lectures / by Andrew Wilson.

  • Wilson, Andrew, 1852-1912.
Date:
1884
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Leisure-time studies, chiefly biological : a series of essays and lectures / by Andrew Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    mechanical routine of abstract studies, to an intelligent appreciation of his work and place in the world. The effort to train pupils to think for themselves, is confessedly the hardest task of the intelligent teacher; and I have said enough of the method of biological study, I imagine, to show how the science, founded on observation, must induce habits of thought, which should affect the whole educational life of the pupil. I might also point out how, especially in the case of girls, the study of biology, in its effect of interesting them in the world around, should act as an important means of further- ing the after-education of their lives. The boy, with his future destiny as a tradesman or professional man, has less need than the girl of some solid study whereon the mind may rest, and to which it may fly for the intellectual occu- pation that it must inevitably feel the need of some time or other. As Mr. Hamerton has well said, “To have one favourite study, and live in it with happy familiarity, and cultivate every portion of it diligently and lovingly, as a small yeoman proprietor cultivates his own land, this, as to study at least, is the most enviable intellectual life.” And if a study should be sought for which shall most pleasantly aid in the cultivation of the inner life just described, it will assuredly be found more readily within the domain of biology than in any other department of human knowledge. To act as such a mental stimulant; to effectually prevent the occurrence of that miserable disease of female mental existence—ennui; to give the mind breadth and tone from the beginning of its cultiva- tion—such are the benefits I claim for the school study of biology, carried in its natural development into the after-life of the pupil of either sex. That we need biological teaching, therefore, in our schools, I think I may fairly maintain; and that this need should assert itself by demanding the necessary supply, I must also boldly submit. It is for practical educationists— for those engaged in the daily labour of teaching, and of observing what are the necessities of modern culture in its