A century of science in America

by Unknown

The teaching of biology at this time was also strongly influenced by Huxley, whose methods of conducting laboratory classes for elementary students were adopted in most of our large schools and colleges. This placed biology on the same plane with chemistry as a means for training in laboratory methods and discipline, with the added advantage that the subject of biology is much more intimately connected with the student’s everyday life and affairs.

This increasing demand for instruction in biology and the consequent necessity for more teachers brought an increasing number of investigators into this field.

Conspicuous in this period was the work of E. D. Cope, best known as a paleontologist, but whose work on the classification of the various groups of vertebrates stands preeminent, and whose philosophical essays on evolution had much influence on the evolutionary thought of the time. He was a staunch supporter of the Lamarckian doctrine. Alpheus Hyatt also maintained this theory, and brought together a great accumulation of facts in its support. He thereby contributed largely to our knowledge of comparative anatomy and embryology. A. S. Packard, whose publications cover a wide range of topics, was best known for his text-books of zoology and his manuals on insects.

W. K. Brooks was a leading morphologist and embryologist. S. F. Baird, for many years the head of the United States Fish Commission, was the foremost authority on fish and fisheries and is also noted for his work on reptiles, birds and mammals. The man of greatest influence, although by no means the greatest investigator, was C. O. Whitman. It is to him that we owe the inception of the Marine Biological Laboratory, the most potent influence in American zoology to-day; the organization of the American Morphological Society, the forerunner of the present American Society of Zoologists; and the establishment of the Journal of Morphology. G. B. Goode was distinguished for his work on fishes and for his writings on the history of science.

E. L. Mark, C. S. Minot, and Alexander Agassiz were acknowledged leaders in their special fields of research—Mark in invertebrate morphology and embryology, and Minot in vertebrate embryology, while Alexander Agassiz made many important discoveries in the systematic zoology and embryology of marine animals, and to him we owe in large measure our knowledge of the life in the oceans of nearly all parts of the world.

The knowledge of the representatives of the different divisions of the American fauna had now become sufficient to allow the publication of monographs on the various classes, orders and families. At this time also particular attention was given to the marine invertebrates of all groups.

Of the many investigators working on the various groups of animals at this time only a few may be mentioned. The protozoa were studied by Leidy, Clark, Ryder, Stokes; the sponges by Clark, Hyatt; the coelenterates by A. Agassiz, S. F. Clarke, Verrill; the echinoderms by A. Agassiz, Brooks, Kingsley, Fewkes, Lyman, Verrill; the various groups of worms by Benedict, Eisen, Silliman, Verrill, Webster, Whitman; the mollusks by A. and W. G. Binney, Tryon, Conrad, Dall, Sanderson Smith, Stearns, Verrill; the Brachiopods by Dall and Morse; the Bryozoa by Hyatt; the crustacea by S. I. Smith, Harger, Hagen, Packard, Kingsley, Faxon, Herrick; the insects by Packard, Horn, Scudder, C. H. Fernald, Williston, Norton, Walsh, Fitch, J. B. Smith, Comstock, Howard, Riley and many others; spiders by Emerton, Marx, McCook; tunicates by Packard and Verrill; fishes by Baird, Bean, Cope, Gilbert, Gill, Goode, Jordan, Putnam; amphibians and reptiles by Cope; birds by Baird, Brewer, Coues, Elliott, Henshaw, Allen, Merriam, Brewster, Ridgway; and the mammals by Allen, Baird, Cope, Coues, Elliott, Merriam, Wilder.

Interest in the evolutionary theory continued to increase and eventually developed into the morphological and embryological studies which reached their culmination between 1885 and 1890 under the guidance of Whitman, Mark, Minot, Brooks, Kingsley, E. B. Wilson and other famous zoologists of the time. In these years the Journal of Morphology was established and the American Morphological Society was formed.

The morphological, embryological and paleontological evidences of evolution as indicated by homologies, developmental stages and adaptations were the most absorbing subjects of zoological research and discussion.