The Scottish Naturalist. 3 



technical, that would appeal to but a very few readers — one that I 

 believe to be of interest to all who are concerned in the pro- 

 gress of Science-education in our country : and there are few 

 thoughtful educated men of the present day who are not. A 

 strong public feeling is rapidly growing up — if it has not been 

 already fully developed — in favour of the introduction of Science- 

 teaching into even our elementary schools. The superiority of 

 the cultivation of the Sciences of Observation — not only as a 

 means of mental training, but as tending to lead to the due utili- 

 sation, in commerce, manufacture, or the arts, of the supera- 

 bundant natural products of our own and other countries* — is 

 being fully recognised or admitted. A Royal Science Com- 

 mission is presently at work deliberating on the best means of 

 bringing about a State recognition of the claims of Science. t 

 Oxford and Cambridge, of old consecrated to the Classics and 

 Mathematics, are throwing open their portals to the study of 

 the Natural Sciences, and are bestowing high academic honours 

 on their successful cultivators. The leading Ministers of the 

 crown, and Members of parliament, in giving an account of 

 their stewardship; the Lord Rectors J and Principals of Univer- 

 sities ; Mr. Buckmaster, from the Department of Science and 

 Art ; and many other authorities — as well, unfortunately, as 

 many who are no authorities, — are at present constantly ha- 

 ranguing the public, or select portions thereof, regarding the 

 claims of Science as an element in both primary and higher 

 education, and its importance in relation to a nation's welfare 

 and progress. And throughout the country the Ancient Classics 

 are being at least partially superseded, in all grades of schools, 

 by Natural History, Chemistry and Physics. 



*I devoted a Lecture to the subject of "The Place and Power of Natural 

 History in Colonisation ;" which was published in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 

 January, 1862, and reprinted (in part), in the "Edinburgh New Philosophical 

 Journal," for April and July, 1863. 



+"The Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction, and the Advancement of 

 Science" — whose headquarters are 6 Old Palace Yard, London, S. W. (in Nov., 

 1870,) — contains among its Members men so eminent in different departments of 

 Science as Professors Huxley, and Sharpey, and Sir John Lubbock. 



X Only the other day, (November 18, 1870,) Mr Grant Duff, M.P., in his 

 Rectorial address before the University of Aberdeen, made a special plea on 

 behalf of Natural History (especially Botany and Geology),— in contrast with the 

 Dead Languages,— as a feature of a general University curriculum. 



