Davis's “Biology”

Abstract

THE REVIEWER IF I may argue from the contents of Mr. Davis's book, he should be a good judge of what constitutes “falling into a common mistake,” and yet I cannot accept his opinion as to my having accomplished this feat. I have refrained from enumerating the common mistakes which his little book contains, but I am not prepared to allow him to lay down the law as to educational methods. In my opinion it is a grievous error to present any subject of study to University students under two aspects, that of “pass” and that of “honours.” Whatever is worth doing at all (in academic exercises) is worth doing well, and no regulations sanctioned by any University Senate—however philanthropic, incompetent, and imperial—can make the perennial iteration of the statements in a cram-book concerning six plants and six animals a satisfactory substitute for the study of zoological and botanical science, or anything but a pernicious torturing of the youthful mind.