various tissues and organs which build up the animal in its perfect condition.

From the time the chick has reached the condition in which all its organs are fairly sketched, it simply grows larger and larger, and finally breaks through the shell. The skin has already become distinct from the muscles; the feathers begin to be formed, and all those parts with which you are familiar may readily be distinguished. You see now by what complicated process (the details of which I have considerably abridged) this is brought about.

I have given you but a meagre outline of the changes which take place in the formation of quadrupeds, birds, reptiles and fishes, though this may be sufficient to show that these processes must be studied in every animal independently.

The figures below, representing a fish in the egg, show at once how different the growth of these animals is from that of

Fig. 20.

The same as figs 17, 18 and 19 before the eggshell has burst.

the mammalia and birds. young fish remains free upon the structure of the body, however, and the circulation of the blood upon the yolk, is strikingly similar to that of the dog, the chicken, or the little turtle. Compare in this respect the

Here we have no amnios; the surface of the yolk. The

figures of D'Alton with those of Bischoff and my own in the Embryology of our Terrapene.

Now, what are the conditions necessary for making these observations? A man must be practised, and not only practised, but fully skilled in the use of the microscope. He must know the structure of the animal in its adult condition so accurately, and so completely, that every difference in the structure of the younger animal will at once strike his eye. He must be able to make these comparisons without having specimens before him for comparison: he must have appropriated that knowledge to himself so completely that he may weigh the changes going on in the substance of the germ merely by the eye, and ascertain every change in so accurate a manner that he may record the facts in their true connection. And more than that, he must be able to prepare the conditions in which these germs will not be altered by being brought under the microscope. Try to bring an embryo, a young chick, in that early stage of growth, as you find it after a few days' incubation, under the microscope, and you are likely to find that you have reduced it to a shapeless mass. These objects cannot be handled like a piece of wood. They must be treated with a degree of delicacy which makes it impossible, for instance, for an observer to use any stimulant, even such as coffee and tea, or to eat heartily, or to exercise in any degree which may accelerate the pulse; otherwise his eye will be constantly thrown out of focus. Unless a man has himself under control to that extent, he cannot begin to make good observations. Not only must he have the knowledge necessary, not only must he have the practice necessary, not only must he have the instruments necessary-he must have his own organization so completely under control that he brings himself into that living relation with the object of his observations which alone makes it possible that they shall be accurate. It is not everybody who is willing or able to do this; and then he must carry on his observations by day and night, as the embryo is growing unceasingly, and unless he does continue his observations uninterruptedly, he may miss the most important steps in the progress of growth. Now before you find a man qualified to be an observer, you may have to wait a long while. It was just

so during our late war. We did not find the generals who knew how to command, the day of the first battle. It requires years to find a man capable of leading two hundred thousand men. In matters of scientific progress we need a great many students, and large schools, from which to pick out the man who is capable of making new discoveries, or simply accurate investigations; and have we these schools now? Is the number of our scientific students proportionate to the intellectual capacity of the nation? By no means; and until our system of popular education is radically changed, or so far changed, at least, that in all our schools instruction is given in those branches of science which train observers, you may not even have the knowledge necessary to carry on your practical pursuits, and still less the chances of making any real progress. These results can only be brought about by introducing into our schools that sort of instruction which prepares students to become observers, or at least, which gives the teacher an opportunity of ascertaining whether any of his pupils may be educated into an observer or not. Such schools we have not, such teachers we have not, or very few of them-half a dozen in Massachusetts is the sum-total of the men qualified to teach in that way; and the schools in which they may teach, the apparatus necessary for that instruction, we have not. We have to build them up, and we shall not have them before the community understands what are the conditions necessary for the acquisition of new knowledge which may improve the conditions of our success in the practical affairs of a civilized community.

You may ask what text-books you shall take to begin with. There are none that I would recommend. You cannot use the present text-books, for most of them are manufactured by people who know nothing or precious little of the subject about which they write. They are mere compilations, made for the market, by men who have no sort of knowledge of what should be the substance of a text-book; and, what is worse than that, our schools are crowded with so large a number of pupils that the teachers, even the very best of them, have to resort to all sorts of devices in order to keep alive. Instead of teaching, that is, instead of giving out of their knowledge and their substance something by which they can

vivify the intellect of their pupils, they are forced by the pressure of numbers to direct their pupils to commit to memory some superannuated book, and make them recite things not worth knowing. So there we must begin. We must begin by relieving the teacher from a task to which no human being is equal; for it is impossible for any one person, at the same time, to teach eighty pupils well, in one and the same room. It is physically impossible. It is past endurance ; and all those who have tried to do this kind of work, honestly and faithfully, have paid for the effort with the loss of health. And then there is another point. In order to get men capable of performing the difficult task of teaching, you must give greater inducements to able intellects to devote themselves to the task. The teacher's profession must not be the least remunerative of any profession in the community, as at present it is. Only those who by nature cannot help being teachers go into it, and their willingness to teach is misused by the community by giving them a pittance for their existence. So one more thing is needed: you must organize normal schools to educate teachers of natural history and science generally. You must not only determine that you will introduce these branches of knowledge into your schools, but you must prepare teachers for the task.

And here let me say a good word for the institution with which I am connected. I am trying, in the Museum at Cambridge, to educate such teachers; and most of those who are already abroad in the community are, I am happy to say, my pupils. Next year we shall make another effort in that direction, and organize a course of instruction on the seashore for all the teachers of the State who shall be willing to go, and charge them nothing. I hope this will come to pass next year. I had full confidence that it would, before the great calamity that has befallen Boston, because I knew that I could always depend upon the liberality of friends in that city to support any undertaking which seemed to promise valuable results. Whether in these dark days I shall be able to at once carry my plan to the extent which I had hoped, I do not know, but if I am able to carry it out, the instruction shall be this: All day long, those who shall come shall be taught how to observe. If they are not naturally able, naturally inclined towards

observation, it is better for them that they should then, and as soon as possible, go home. Those who shall show ability as observers shall be kept at it, and while learning how to observe, while taught by a corps of competent teachers, they shall make such collections themselves as will enable them to repeat, during the coming winter, to their classes at home, what they have learned, and in that way I hope a sufficient interest will be excited in the study of nature to induce the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to make the study of nature, -the study of nature generally, in all its branches,—a part of the common-school system of education.

INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY.

Among the efforts at improvement which have been made during the year, it is proper to notice the introduction of new machinery for the cultivation of roots, especially the beet

crop. These machines were imported from Germany by the Massachusetts Agricultural College, and may be regarded as

the latest attempts at improvement upon the modern English machines. The first is