346 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



important factor in the formation and preservation of his extraordinary 

 individuality and faith in his own powers. Darwin's followers may 

 therefore bless even the obtuseness and unwisdom of his preceptors who 

 left him unspoiled by their restraining influence. 



When, in 1825, Doctor Eobert Darwin concluded that his son Charles 

 was lacking in natural aptitude for scholarship, he sent him to Edin- 

 burgh University, intending that he should follow in the footsteps of 

 his father and of his grandfather by becoming a physician. But here, 

 again, the young man found himself unable to receive what was oSered 

 him on the strength of ancient authority. The instruction dispensed 

 in that hoary institution was, to him, perfunctory and uninspiring and 

 he was once more driven to seek the real enlargement of his knowledge 

 by self-directed methods. In this way he appears to have obtained, at 

 Edinburgh, some sort of acquaintance with the fundamental principles 

 of scientific research, but, as the learning thus acquired was not in the 

 line of his intended profession, it was not appreciated by his family and 

 friends. Accordingly, after two sessions spent at that university, it 

 was concluded that his regular studies had been entirely misdirected 

 and he was therefore withdrawn and sent to Cambridge. There he was 

 still worse misguided in the endeavor to educate him in theology. 

 Again was repeated the old story of an uncongenial curriculum osten- 

 sibly conformed to but in reality shirked and avoided in favor of natural 

 history privately followed by side paths. The unwilling student wished 

 to be obedient to his father's direction, but native bent proved stronger 

 than conventional rule — the call of destiny louder than the voice of 

 filial duty. 



His father, in most things a wise man, saw in his son's insect- and 

 bird-hunting proclivity a tendency to the life of "an idle sporting 

 man" and was sorely grieved and disappointed when he was obliged 

 to concede the failure of his plan to connect the house of Darwin with 

 the Church of England. Fortunately, however, the youthful Darwin 

 came under the influence, at Cambridge, of a teacher endowed with 

 more than ordinary discernment and, in this particular matter, with 

 somewhat unusual independence and courage, and he took the budding 

 naturalist and his lawless pursuits under his patronage and protection. 

 To the faith and friendship of Professor J. S. Henslow Darwin was 

 indebted for his appointment to the Beagle expedition, and to Professor 

 Henslow, who robbed the church to enrich science, the world owes an 

 incalculable debt of gratitude for the discovery, if not for the devel- 

 opment, of one of its loftiest geniuses. 



Others besides Henslow, however, had contributed to the fixation of 

 Darwin's inborn talents and abilities, but Darwin never admitted that 

 he received, either at Edinburgh or at Cambridge, anything like sys- 

 tematic mental training. He was, from the beginning of his school 



