192 ON THE POPULARITY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



educated under the old system, and how then can the study of Natural History 

 b% correctly appreciated yet ? how can it be truly popular at present ? 



I have alluded to these things that naturalists may not be deceived, — much, 

 very much, remains to be done before Natural History as a science is popular* 

 and this ought to be known and acted upon. This really concerns both the 

 readers of, and the writers in, The Naturalist. As a child who has learned to 

 walk disdains the leading strings, so the proficient in science is anxious to pro- 

 claim his acquirements. But if he gets on so far as to be out of hearing, he can 

 only address the echoes, and perhaps he had better pause a moment for his com- 

 patriots to get up. To speak plainly, writers must not yet become so obscure as 

 to be understood only by the learned, and readers ought to consider that if new 

 facts and discoveries and abstruse dissertations are their delight, there are others 

 who must be charmed into the path of science by pictures assimilated to their less 

 soaring ideas, and by language which will not be to them an undeciphered hiero- 

 glyphic. Sir James Smith complained that Sowerby's beautiful plates of Bri- 

 tish plants made empirical botanists, as persons turned over the plates to com- 

 pare with the plant they had found, and neglected the correct method of con- 

 sulting the generic and specific descriptions.'"' This might be so, for there will 

 always be lazy fellows in the world ready to pounce upon knowledge in the 

 easiest way ; but Sir James should have considered that science was surely bene- 

 fitted, because, as his descriptions were purchased with the plates, they could not 

 well be got rid of, while in all probability he who commenced with the plates, 

 examined the descriptions at last. So it is in literature, — a man opening a work 

 for amusement, shrinks from a catalogue of names that seems to present an aw- 

 ful appearance to his eye, and looks for a lighter article, and yet probably that 

 lighter article may, when his attention is once excited, lead him to study and 

 duly appreciate the once abandoned and formidable catalogue of unknown names. 



The enquiry I have broached ought to claim the attention of Natural History 

 Societies. Many of these have arisen with bright prospects within the last five 

 or six years. Some have gone to the tomb of the Capulets — others have flou- 

 rished — a few perhaps maintain a precarious existence. None have, I think, 

 done what might have been expected from them. They perhaps"' trust to the 

 " popularity of Natural History." Vain delusion ! it is their duty to make 

 Natural History popular. What steps have they taken to do this ? Have they 

 encouraged its votaries ? Invited its friends to state their views to its mem- 

 bers ? Opened communications with men of science throughout the kingdom ? 

 Given every encouragement personally and unitedly to publications illustrative 

 of the subject they profess to appreciate ? Have they published synopses of the 



* Preface to hi» English Flora. 



