SKETCH OF HENRI MILNE-EDWARDS. 



?45 



will not apply. No educated person doubts that the earth is a sphere ; 

 but few of these can prove that it is so by means of facts with which 

 they are acquainted, though a simple law of geometry is able to prove 

 the fact. 



The average occupations of young men require nothing more than 

 stored minds and powers of observation ; consequently, our competi- 

 tive examinations serve to some extent to bring to the front such 

 qualifications. But it is not among such that we obtain our discover- 

 ers, inventors, great statesmen, or good generals. The mere routine 

 man will almost invariably bring about a disaster when he has novel 

 conditions to deal with ; and as a rule the routine youth comes out 

 best at an examination. 



At the present time we have apparently no accurate test by which 

 to measure the relative brain-power of individuals. Competitive ex- 

 aminations can not do so, for the reasons that we have stated. Success 

 in life is, again, dependent on so many influences quite outside of the 

 individual that this success is no test. The accumulation of money 

 that is " getting rich " is too often but the results of selfishness and 

 cruel bargains, and can not be invariably accepted as a proof of brain- 

 power. 



Considering these facts, therefore, it appears that just as intellect 

 is invisible, so the relative power of intellect is immeasurable ; and 

 instead of forming hasty conclusions as to the relative powers of two 

 men, from the results of examinations, we may perceive that by such 

 means we may be selecting those only who, under certain conditions, 

 have succeeded in storing their minds with the facts required for that 

 examination. Chambers's Journal. 



-*- 



SKETCH OF HENRI MILNE-EDWAKDS. 



ON the 3d of April, 1881, a medal, bought with the subscriptions 

 of the scientific men and friends of science of various nations, 

 was presented to M. Henri Milne-Edwards by a committee of repre- 

 sentative French men of science, in honor of the completion of his 

 great work on " Comparative Physiology and Anatomy." This mag- 

 nificent treatise of which M. Blanchard, in making one of the pres- 

 entation speeches, said : " Many authors have, with more or less of 

 success, published treatises for those who were studying ; M. Milne- 

 Edwards alone has made one for masters " was the fitting consum- 

 mation to which nearly sixty years of scientific labor had consistently 

 led. 



M. Milne-Edwards was born on the 23d of October, 1800, at 

 Bruges, Belgium, of English parentage, his family having come from 

 vol. xxii. 35 



