IV PREFACE. 



In renewing our thanks to our various contributors at the end 

 of our annual volume, we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of 

 reminding them that all the good the Magazine of Natural History 

 has done, and continues to do, is mainly owing to their exertions. 

 Our merit is chiefly limited to that of affording them a vehicle, we 

 hope a safe and agreeable one, for conveying their information to 

 the reading public. 



J. C. L. 



Bayswater, Nov. 16. 1835. 



of gas, issuing through the tables, served them in lieu of furnaces. Near each jet 

 was a common wine glass, an assortment of broad and narrow slips of window 

 glass, bits of white paper, and, at regular intervals, a few bottles containing acids, 

 alkalies, infusions of vegetable blue, or other chemical substances. The lecture 

 was just concluded, and the experiments had a reference to the subjects discussed 

 in it. After each experiment, questions were put by the teacher as to the na- 

 ture of the substances used, and the change ensuing ; and they were answered 

 by the fifty voices simultaneously. This practical chemistry lasted half an 

 hour. The ladies seem to be generally from fifteen to eighteen years of age : 

 some were probably about twelve, and others about twenty. Though young, 

 however, they were neither timorous nor awkward ; but went through the mani- 

 pulations with an alacrity and zest, which showed that there was much of pleasure, 

 and nothing of task-work, in the exercise. The object, of course, is not to qualify 

 ladies for the business of the laboratory, but to give them clearer conceptions of 

 the facts and principles of the science, and to fix them better in the memory. 

 The novelty of the thing ; the sight of so many happy young females, whose faces 

 were beaming with beauty, health, and vivacity, so employed ; gave no small de- 

 gree of interest to the spectacle. We could not help feeling that it was one of 

 the " signs " which prognosticate that the coming age will not be exactly the 

 " double " of the present. We see, moreover, from the Report lately published by 

 the directors, that forty young ladies last year studied mathematics, and not only 

 got safely over the pons asinorum, but, marvel of marvels, went through five 

 books of Euclid, and passed so far over the threshold of Algebra as to solve quad- 

 ratic equations ! It is easy for witlings to ridicule all this, and to ask whether a 

 lady is to neglect the care of her children, and the concerns of the kitchen and 

 laundry, for the study of acids and triangles ? Generally, the sagacious persons 

 who put these queries, think it a most judicious employment of a boy's time to 

 make him spend years upon such improving and inspiring themes as hie, hcec, hoc, 

 and the other lumber of declensions, conjugations, and syntax rules of Latin and 

 Greek ! When Lord Chesterfield called women " children of a larger growth," 

 his scorn was misdirected. He should have libelled the other sex, who have cur- 

 tailed the female mind of its fair proportions by a frivolous and enervating educa- 

 tion. Nature, in bestowing the same faculties on both sexes, clearly indicated that 

 they were to be employed on the same objects. Women require special training 

 for the duties of a mother, and men for those of a profession. Beyond this, it is 

 nature's dictate, that the whole field of intellectual study (with some small and 

 obvious exceptions) should be open to both. Each sex has, indeed, its peculiar ap- 

 titudes; but all the sublime truths of physical science, all the instructive themes 

 of morals, politics, and religion, are within the capacity of either. Considered as 

 a source of pure enjoyment, it is unjust and tyrannical to shut out the female sex 

 from scientific pursuits. Two thirds of the happiness of married life ought to lie in 

 companionship ; and does any one doubt that an enlightened man will prefer a 

 companion who can exchange ideas with him on all the most profound and inter- 

 esting subjects of cogitation, to one whose thoughts are incapable of rising above fri- 

 volous gossip ? Then, as to the maternal relations, whether will a son reap more 

 improvement from, or feel greater respect for, an intellectual woman^ or a mere 

 notable housewife ? " (Scotsman, Nov. 14. 1835.) 



