Darwin- Wallace Celebration. 33 



distinguished medallists are decorated. These men, who 

 were personal friends or disciples of Charles Darwin, we 

 delight to see honoured ; and if I may venture to mention 

 one name amongst the medallists after Mr. Wallace, I should 

 like to say what deep satisfaction it gives to men of science, 

 both those who are present and those who all over the world 

 will learn the fact to-morrow to see that Sir Joseph Hooker 

 has been able to be present and to address us this day. 



It is customary to speak of Charles Darwin as a son of 

 Cambridge University, but in duty bound I must begin by 

 claiming him as a son of Christ's College. I think it would 

 be interesting to consider for a moment what these two 



C5 



institutions, Christ's College and the University, did for him. 

 As regards the College, it provided him with a home, 

 wholesome and cheerful, for three years. How much he 

 learned at Christ's College appears a little doubtful, and 

 from some stray references in the ' Life and Letters ' to the 

 senior tutor and the College lecturers, I do not think it 

 would be a profitable enquiry to try and make out how much 

 he was taught by the College. But one thing he did learn 

 there, and that was to love that College which many a 

 man before and after him has loved and that, I think you 

 will agree with me, is worth learning. 



Then as to what the University did. The University 

 began by insisting upon his relearning Greek, which in the 

 free and congenial atmosphere of Edinburgh University he 

 had forgotten even down to the greater part of the alphabet. 

 I am sorry to say that the method of degrading an ancient 

 and beautiful language into an instrument of torture for 

 science students still reigns at Cambridge. Then his 

 University made him learn Paley and Euclid, and in these 

 authors now partially extinct he found some edification. 

 If it was to Edinburgh University that he owed his intro- 

 duction to the paths of research, which I gladly acknowledge, 

 it is nevertheless to Cambridge that he owed the best thing 

 that any University can give to any student, I mean a teacher 

 fit for him. In Professor Henslow he had such a man 



