San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-01-10
INVERTEBRATES.

our lessons in animal physiology, in
the good old days when the masters
rod of correction went through our
summer jackets aud our young fool
.ishness together, diffusing an unusual
smartness over the whole outside boy,
will recall how we stumbled over the
sweet confusion of vertebrates and
the invertebrates. What a trouble it
was to remember which was which
and how to distinguish it from tother.
Which of the two outlandish old Gus
toners it was that had the back bone
s and which one it was that had none,
this was the ever recurring puzzle of
those early school days. What won
der that our little noodles only re-
belled against the surfeit of hard
words, too many of them without any
meaning that we could discover,an
generally preferred the inevitable
birch that followed the lapse of men,
ory.
,After years have changed the whole
scene of life The boys and girls on
the old forms are the men and women
of today. The verbiage of much that
was then learned has been forgotten,
but its habits of application, its meth
od, it's Induction and its deduction, as
well as its reduction and construction
much of this power remains and is the
foundation for what little or greater
success we may have had in the
world.
All was nef forgotten when we left
tie old forms and took up the business
of life in the school of experience.
Many of its phrases linger in our
memories, many of its lessons are
turned to other account. New appli-
cations of the old truths there learned
have become the rule with many of
us and their use is ever enlarging.
We smile now as we recall how we
labored over these internal verte-
brates and invertebrates, the places
of which were so often inverted in
our ideas and in our recitationS.
4 Somehow it SENS that they have not
got Strengthened yet, with many of us,
and when we loo at the world of liv-
ing things, we are as much puzzled
as to the yertebrates and inverte-
bTates, as when we sat on the school
form, and puzzled over the skeletons
outlined on the blackboard. And the
muddle of this puzzle is not all in our
brains. There is displacement of
these in the living world about us, to
the full as distressing as the old in
version in our ideas. Not one of
Swift's grotesque pictures of life in
Llliput or Brobdingnag is any more
bewildering to the ordinary mind than
the misplacing of these vertebrates
and invertebrates,
1t is true that the nature of the diff
Guilty is somewhat changed. We no lon
ger confOund a vertebrate and an in
vertebrate, but the puzzle is not much
less to find that the back bone is it
self displaced and that it is not where
we expected to find it. Just imagine
the establishment of a Psychologist,
who, having verified all his data and
confidently expecting to find a spinal
column in his subject discovers that
there is none in sight Again he ap-
plies himself to his task. He makes
the most careful examination of his
subject, notes the smallest peculiari-
ties in structure; compares all that be
notes with the authorities, satisfies
himself that he has made no mistake
and again locates his back bone only
to find upon examination that it is not
there Could anything be more con
fusing. more likely to lead to dis
belief in all the conclusions of seien
tific observation, TO doubt in science
itself?
Not less is the puzzle. not greater
the disappointment, when we as social
Psychologists, so to speak, undertake
->.tJ locate the back bone in some mem
Der ofSsociety, and after the most la
bored research find that there is nc
back bone to the subject at all. OF
all the abnormal objects that aff1ict
the world there is none more frequent
Iy to be met with, none more insight
ly than those so-called humans in
whom no backbone is to be found
They are walking receptions. BY
their general outline and form they
pass as vertebrates. they move like
vertebrates. they are in structure lik,
yertebrates and are so taken until
they happen to come upon the opera
ting table and they are found to have
no back bone in them. Such mer
are the disappointment of Their
friends. the bane of their families, the
laughing stock of their enemies and
the nuZzle of the scientists.
OF what earthly use to himself oil
to any one else is man without {
backbone? What business can h'
undertake and accomplish? He can
not sit up unless he is propped HI
cannot stand unless he is sandwichei
between two posts. Walking is on
Of the question with him. He Il
incanable of independent movpmen
in any direction. He can carry n,
burdens. aid in no work, take part il