160 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



heart. He was active, observant, and intelligent, a favorite partner at 

 childish parties, and danced elegantly. This beautiful boyhood un- 

 folded into a noble manhood, which took a turn so original and in- 

 structive, that we cannot do better than give some account of it to the 

 readers of the Populab Science Monthly. 



Young Henslow early developed a taste for the study of natural ob- 

 jects, and for making collections and experiments. His scientific future 

 was symbolized by an adventure made while yet a child in a frock, 

 and which consisted in dragging all the way home from a field, a con- 

 siderable distance off, an enormous fungus which was dried and long 

 preserved in the family. The lad had good blood and a good chance ; 

 his grandfather, Sir John Henslow, Chief Surveyor of the Navy, was a 

 man of scientific attainments and much ingenuity ; his mother was an 

 accomplished woman, fond of natural history, and an assiduous col- 

 lector of natural and artificial curiosities. His father had a great taste 

 for birds, kept an extensive aviary, and had an ample library of nat- 

 ural history. The drawing-master at his school was a good entomol- 

 ogist and introduced the boy to some of the eminent naturalists of 

 the day, who gave direction to his studies. He collected insects in the 

 woodsof Kent, and Crustacea and shells from the bed of the Medway . 

 many of his specimens were new and valuable, and found their way 

 into the drawers of the British Museum. At the age of eighteen 

 he entered St. John's College, Cambridge, and four years later took 

 his degree of B. A. A year subsequently, in 1819, he accompanied 

 Prof. Sedgwick to the Isle of Wight, where he took his first practical 

 lessons in geology. He had been elected Fellow of the Linnaean Society 

 in 1818, became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1819, and made 

 his first essay in authorship by a contribution to its proceedings in 1821, 

 when twenty-five years of age. Mr. Henslow had paid much atten- 

 tion to mathematics in college, was a thorough student of mineralogy 

 and chemistry, and took a leading part in founding the Cambridge 

 Philosophical Society, in 1819. In 1822 he was elected Professor of 

 Mineralogy in the Cambridge University. He was not an eloquent 

 lecturer, but he had a good voice, and a remarkably clear way of ex- 

 pressing himself. He cultivated the art of explanation and adapting 

 his language to the capacity of his hearers, and thus became one of 

 the very best lecturers of the day. But the chair of Mineralogy was 

 not what Prof. Henslow wanted. His favorite study was botany, and, 

 a vacancy occurring in this professorship, Prof. Henslow was elected 

 to the position in 1823. This science, and natural history generally, 

 were in a low state in the university at that time. 1 His predecessor 



i " In a low state," the reader must remember, not merely from neglect, but from hos- 

 tility on the part of the classicists and mathematicians who had possession of the estab- 

 lishment. Even years afterward, when, mainly under Prof. Henslow's influence, natural 

 history studies began to receive attention, Edward Forbes spent a couple of days in 

 Cambridge and wrote : " I was greatly pleased with my visit, except in one thing to 



