of N(Uurq{ ^/^fp^jf.^ (o^ Qeol^gy^ pw<f tfte^ Afta. 2 1 3 



much stress, and through it to cultivate tho.se trac^ of |;.hje ^nind of 

 youth that now lie fallow and unproductive. ; ^ \^] I ' 



I speak thus strongly respecting the neglect of the sciences of 

 observation in the ordinary practice of education in England, because 

 it is too probable that in it lies one of the chief difficulties with which 

 schools of applied scionces will have to contend in the outset. The 

 rudiments of science should be tauQ[ht elsewhere. The student should 

 come prepared with a groundwork of elementary training, which 

 there is too much reason to fear, in the present condition of schools 

 and schoolmasters, he will have great difficulty in obtaining. The 

 training for scientific study should be effected in preparatory schools. 

 The teaching here should consist in the communication of scientific 

 knowledge, and in the elucidation of the applications of it. But we 

 do not despair. The events of this year have gone far to awaken 

 Englishmen to the consciousness of the dignity that is inherent in 

 those pursuits which have made their country so powerful among 

 nations. The union of practice with science is the surest way to 

 keep her strong position. Through the operation of well-devised 

 educational establishments only can that union be cemented, and 

 future results secured. ,..,..,,. ., -^- ).■„ 



In the scheme of education adopted by the School of; Mines, it 

 will be observed that palaeontology is regarded as inseparable from na- 

 tural history. I have already said that the study of organic remains, 

 conducted independently of the study of living organisms, is essen- 

 tially empirical and injurious to science. The value, the interest, the 

 scientific and practical importance of fossils, depend entirely on the 

 knowledge of their true nature, which we gain through a comparison 

 of them with their existing homologues and analogues. That compa- 

 rison cannot be understood unless we make ourselves acquainted with 

 the habits and organisation of the living types with which fossils must 

 be compared. There are now nearly 30,000 kinds of fossils known and 

 described ; these have been discovered in formations of ail epochs. 

 Some of them are the remains of beings that lived at immeasurable 

 distances of time, — some of them are the skeletons of creatures that 

 nourished along with the ancestors of species now existing. Yet all re- 

 searches hitherto made have gone to shew that every form of extinct 

 life was a member of the same great series of beings with those which 

 now inhabit our world, — that the laws of organisation and the laws 

 of life were the same in the primeval epochs of Preadamite time as 

 now, — that the same great universal thought has uniquely pervaded 

 , the one great creative action, — that the repeated manifestations of 



^, creative power during successive ages have ever announced the one 

 .consistent idea, -r,, t ^'i. ►,- 1 'i-i" '" /' ' ' 



... It IS not an nncoHimon lancy to; suppose that naturalists are occu- 



^ ipied entirely w^th the naming and describing of the kinds of animals 

 and plants ; that, provided they can enumerate in clear though tech- 

 nical language the characteristics or features of a being submitted 



