Abstract
A JOINT meeting of the Linnean Society and the Systematics Association was held in the rooms of the former at Burlington House on February 6, when “The Teaching of Taxonomy” was the subject discussed. Sir Clive Forster-Cooper opened the discussion by noting the wide points of view and urging the importance of modern taxonomy. At onetime taxonomy was the foremost branch of biology. It then suffered a decline relative to newer aspects and for along time was considered a blind alley ; but a revival of interest is now occurring. There are dangers in speaking too much of the 'professional' taxonomist, but the museum taxonomist is certainly overburdened in the answering of questions for others and has very little time left for research. It becomes a question whether all the wealth of facts and ideas now tending to be incorporated in taxonomy can be brought together in a unified syllabus for teaching in schools and universities. Sir Clive made the suggestion that the Systematics Association should appoint a committee to draw up some sort of guiding rules, of a sufficiently elastic nature, for the benefit of teachers, and to encourage them to teach students taxonomy along desirable lines.
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THE TEACHING OF TAXONOMY. Nature 159, 446–448 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/159446a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/159446a0