400 THE PROCEEDINGS OP THE LINNEAN SOCIETY 



smattering of which is of no educational use whatever, though it 

 may be interesting and in a way instructive to the cursory reader. 

 How any sane person could ever have dreamt of attempting to 

 train mere children by such means I cannot understand. 

 Chemistry is little better. To learn chemistry (as they phrase 

 it) from book is less improving than to commit to memory the 

 ballad of John Grilpin. To study it experimentally, except so far 

 as the daily experience of combustion, &c, serves for illustration, 

 is impracticable. Natural science alone offers the desired 

 opening, and for this the method has still to be developed. It 

 may be observed that I have omitted all reference to Geology, 

 which is a branch of natural history often attempted in primary 

 education, and, of course, attempted in vain, because taught from 

 books. A boy or girl may well learn by the age of fourteen to 

 distinguish between sedimentary and igneous rocks, between 

 calcareous, silicious, and aluminous minerals. But this is so small 

 a matter that I did not think it worth mentioning in its proper 

 place, and only allude to the subject now, to emphasise my 

 protest against Book-learning in Elementary Science. Nothing 

 should be studied second-hand, that is to say, from the observations 

 of another, which is capable in any way of being brought under 

 the direct observation of the learner. The value of literary 

 training, which depends entirely upon books, is quite beside the 

 question. It is a branch of education which scientific men are 

 rather apt to underrate, in return perhaps for the contemptuous 

 attitude maintained by the learned towards them. But it is to 

 the loss of both parties, and of the world in general, that such 

 mutual dislike should be perpetuated. And the Philistines on 

 both sides ought to be made to feel that they concentrate upon 

 themselves the united hostility of all who desire to see the even 

 and harmonious developement of every human faculty. It is 

 certain, from our experience of the scientists, that science, by 

 itself, is insufficient as a means of higher culture, while literature, 

 even in its ancient and laudable association with mathematics, is 

 imperfect as a true means of education. It must be now-a-days 

 supplemented by some science of observation, or it will fall into 

 most undeserved and undesirable contempt. 



