< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THE MAKING OF BIOLOGISTS.

519

made him shudder, and yet the very lecture cited is really an important contribution to that subject, with its theory of the moods of energy and idleness. The views just expressed seem to be confirmed by the history of one of the most distinguished biologists of this country, Dr. A. S. Packard, who writes me as follows:

I may say that the love of flowers, animals and natural scenery was inborn in me. My ancestry on both sides were ministers, we never had a naturalist in the family, but my father was extremely fond of and appreciative of natural scenery, and was interested in history and archaeology. As a child I was very fond of flowers, as were my parents, and as early as I can remember had a flower-garden of my own. When about 14-15 I began to collect minerals, and then shells. My zeal for collecting and forming a museum led an older brother, who also had such tastes, to give me his cabinet, containing curiosities, shells and minerals. I was also an omnivorous reader,—devoured all the books on natural science in the library of Bowdoin College, where I was kindly allowed to browse, long before entering college. When about 16-17 I collected insects in considerable numbers. I was also aided by a maiden lady in Brunswick, Maine, who told me about shells, and aided me in naming my native plants. I formed a herbarium before entering college. From Miss Ann Jackson when a boy I first heard of Lamarck, and of his classification of shells, and of the Lamarckian genera of shells. With, then, an inborn taste for natural history, an aversion to business, and a fondness for books, my deep interest in animal life was sustained and I was impelled to devote my life to biological study. All through college I corresponded with Professor Baird, assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, also with conchologists and entomologists, and this was a constant stimulus to the natural zeal and interest, or passion, for biology which has influenced my life. Also I was a born collector, though I have now no large collections. I trust this will show how I became interested in natural history. Had I been brought up in a city, the result might have been different. (Litt., October 28, 1901.)

It is interesting to think that Packard might have been our leading conchologist, Jordan our first authority on seaweeds. In nearly every case of which I have full information, some other branch of biology was studied than that which afterwards became the specialty. The interest was almost always at first a general one, afterwards limited by circumstances or choice. Of course one has to remember here that nearly all children in rural districts are interested in nature, though so few become biologists. The writer spent part of his childhood on a farm in Sussex, England, and well remembers the interest taken by the children in the first primroses or daffodils of the year, the arrival of the birds, the occurrence of efts (newts) in certain ponds, and such matters. It seems probable that most children are potential biologists, to some extent, but only a few are able to break through the crust of indifference and opposition which surrounds them a little later, and remain naturalists to the end. If this is true, and it is also true that stimulation at an early age is very important, the nature study movement in the schools may yet produce great results for science. However, in the absence of suitable teachers,

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.