A DEFINITION OF EVOLUTION 



which he wrote for his children as a guide. Charles Robert Darwin was 

 born on February 12, 1809, the fifth of six children born to Robert Waring 

 Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood Dar^^in. Most of Darwin's elementary 

 schooling was obtained at a boarding school in Shrewsbury, England, 

 where his father practised medicine with notable success. The curriculum 

 was almost entii'ely classical, and Darwin professed to have found it ex- 

 ceedingly dull and profitless. While he did not distinguish himself scholas- 

 tically, he developed a great love for dogs, for collecting all manner of 

 things, and for hunting birds. His father once said to him, "You care for 

 nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace 

 to yourself and all of vour family." But Darwin adds, ". . . my father, who 

 was the kindest man I ever knew and whose memory I love with all mv 

 heart, must have been angry and somewhat unjust when he used such 

 words." 



While Darwin found his formal schooling rather fruitless, he did enjoy 

 some cultural avocations during these years. He was fond of poetry, par- 

 ticularly of the historical plays of Shakespeare. He collected minerals and 

 insects with great zeal, but, he says, rather unscientifically. He took much 

 pleasure in watching the habits of birds, and he took some notes on his 

 observations. One of his greatest pleasures was to assist his older brother 

 in his chemical experiments, yet his schoolmaster publicly rebuked him 

 for this, on the grounds that it was a useless pursuit. 



In the fall of 1825, Darwin was sent to the medical school at Edinburgh. 

 His account of the two years at Edinburgh make them seem utterly futile. 

 Instruction was exclusively by means of lectures, which he described as 

 "incredibly dull." He felt very little motivation to come to grips with his 

 medical studies, for "I became convinced from various small circumstances 

 that my father would leave me property enough to subsist on with some 

 comfort, though I never imagined that I should be so rich a man as I am; 

 but my belief was sufficient to check any strenuous efforts to learn medi- 

 cine." But his achievements at Edinburgh could not have been so medi- 

 ocre as he himself indicates, for he gained the friendship and respect of 

 well-established scientists, such as Dr. Ainsworth, a geologist; Dr. Cold- 

 stream and Dr. Grant, zoologists; and Mr. Macgillivray, an ornithologist 

 who was also curator of the museum. While he took no courses under 

 these men, he enjoyed their company and learned much natural history 

 from them. Also, he joined a students' scientific society before which he 

 read papers on some small research problems which he had undertaken. 



In any event, I^arwin did not complete his medical education because 

 his father learned that he did not want to be a physician. So the elder 

 Darwin then suggested that he prepare himself to be a clergyman of the 

 Church of England. Darwin says that the life of a country clergyman 

 appealed to him, and after some study he was convinced of the truth of 

 the Creed of the Church of England. In order to achieve this goal, it was 

 necessary to have a degree from an English university, and so Darwin en- 

 rolled at Cambridge in January, 1828, and was graduated in January, 1831. 

 Of his Cambridge years, Darwin says, ". . . my time was wasted, as far as 

 the academical studies were concerned, as completely as at Edinburgli 



