EDITOR'S TABLE. 



6 97 



that might do invaluable service in 

 the extension and diffusion of scien- 

 tific knowledge. The difficulty is a 

 lack of sufficient interest in such things 

 to resist other solicitations. We do 

 not begin early enough with the study 

 of science to form deep, persistent con- 

 trolling impressions. Other subjects 

 get the start, and the loss of ground 

 can not be subsequently recovered. Sir 

 John Lubbock recognizes that this is a 

 great deficiency of education in Eng- 

 land, and he has again and again brought 

 forward measures in Parliament for 

 extending and rationalizing scientific 

 study in the primary schools, so as to 

 lay a better foundation for this mental 

 pursuit in later life. We suffer sorely 

 from the same neglect. Our primary- 

 school science is not genuine; it is 

 book-science, and awakens no feeling 

 or enthusiasm for the study of natural 

 things. Our rich young men, however 

 nominally educated, have never serious- 

 ly taken hold of the study of nature, 

 and, of course, care nothing about it. 

 Intellectual ambition, therefore and 

 we have plenty of that takes other di- 

 rections. Two unregulated and over- 

 whelming passions in this country stifle 

 the growth of science : the intense and 

 absorbing passion for wealth, and the 

 universal infatuation for politics. These 

 are great national diseases, not peculiar 

 to America, but malignant in America, 

 and the state of mind they engender 

 makes the systematic cultivation of 

 scientific thought next to impossible. 

 Hence our education issues in money- 

 making and politics as exclusive pas- 

 sions, with no cherished intellectual 

 interests to counteract and restrain 

 them. When our early scientific edu- 

 cation becomes more perfected and 

 better organized, so that a strong inter- 

 est in the study of nature shall be en- 

 kindled in the minds of the young, we 

 may then hope that American young 

 men of affluence will be more inclined 

 to seek their gratification in some of 

 the varied and inexhaustible pursuits 



of scientific knowledge. As the " Sci- 

 entific American" truly remarks: 



We have men of brains, of leisure, and of 

 means, seeking in vain for some new way of 

 getting rid of the most valuable thing on 

 earth time. But they are of no use to us 

 or to science ; let them finish their days as 

 they have begun, let them listen to a few 

 law lectures that they do not understand, or 

 join some political party and set up for states- 

 men if they have money enough to buy an 

 office. But shall this thing go on for ever \ 

 Is it not possible to cut off, in part at least, 

 the source of supply by turning it to other 

 channels ? Many of these young men who 

 have now no thought beyond the morrow, 

 no higher ambition than to color a meer- 

 schaum, were boys once real, genuine, in- 

 quisitive boys. Then their powers of obser- 

 vation were capable of cultivation, then a 

 love of nature could have been implanted in 

 their souls, and life would have been bright- 

 ened by an object, and one worthy of a life- 

 long pursuit. When teachers cease to hold 

 up as models those great men who, like Lin- 

 coln and Garfield, have risen from poverty 

 and obscurity to the presidency, and point 

 with pride to the boys who, in spite of 

 wealth and luxurv, have had the courage and 

 perseverance to do a noble act by devoting 

 their time, money, and talents (for some rich 

 boys have genius as well as poor ones) to the 

 study of nature, when teachers begin to have 

 common sense, we may hope to see some of 

 this valuable material rescued from its pres- 

 ent downward course. Bich men are not all 

 fools, and there are some who would take 

 pride in a son who, although he might not 

 be a Leidy or a Lubbock, a Darwin or a 

 Dawson, should be able to associate on terms 

 of scientific equality with men of that class. 



BEECHEB OX 



THEOLOGY AXD EVOLU- 

 TION. 



The first article in the "STorth 

 American Review " for August an ex- 

 cellent number is by Henry Ward 

 Beecher, on "The Progress of Thought 

 in the Church." It is an independent, 

 a powerful, and a most significant dis- 

 cussion, w r hich we recommend every- 

 body to read. We shall not attempt to 

 make any statement of the argument, 

 and only call attention to the large 

 and hearty recognition of science as an 

 agency for the purification of religion. 



