INTRODUCTION 3 



1911 English Literature 



1919 French 



1937 Geography 



1938 Education 



(This is only a selection from the complete list.) 



You may ask, " What has all this got to do with evolution? " 

 It is my thesis that many of the Church's worst features are still 

 left embedded in present-day studies. Thus the serious under- 

 graduate of the previous centuries was brought up on a theological 

 diet from which he would learn to have faith and to quote authori- 

 ties when he was in doubt. Intelligent understanding was the 

 last thing required. The undergraduate of today is just as bad; 

 he is still the same opinion-swallowing grub. He will gladly 

 devour opinions and views that he does not properly understand 

 in the hope that he may later regurgitate them during one of his 

 examinations. Regardless of his subject, be it Engineering, 

 Physics, English or Biology, he will have faith in theories that he 

 only dimly follows and will call upon various authorities to 

 support what he does not understand. In this he differs not one 

 bit from the irrational theology student of the bygone age who 

 would mumble his dogma and hurry through his studies in order 

 to reach the peace and plenty of the comfortable living in the world 

 outside. But what is worse, the present-day student claims to be 

 different from his predecessor in that he thinks scientifically and 

 despises dogma, and when challenged he says in defence, "After 

 all, one has to accept something, or else it takes a very long time to 

 get anywhere." 



Well, let us see the present-day student " getting somewhere." 

 For some years now I have tutored undergraduates on various 

 aspects of Biology. It is quite common during the course of 

 conversation to ask the student if he knows the evidence for 

 Evolution. This usually evokes a faintly superior smile at the 

 simplicity of the question, since it is an old war-horse set in count- 

 less examinations. " Well, sir, there is the evidence from 

 palaeontology, comparative anatomy, embryology, systematics and 

 geographical distributions," the student will say in a nursery- 

 rhyme jargon, sometimes even ticking off the w r ords on his fingers. 

 He would then sit and look fairly complacent and wait for a more 



2— IOE 



