LIFE IN THE SOUTH-SEA ISLANDS. 199 



these principles, or, what amounts to the same thing, to express from 

 the first every phenomenon observed in symbolical language which 

 embodies these principles, is to invert the natural order, and to aban- 

 don the inductive method. Undoubtedly, such are the precision and 

 grasp of this system of symbols that it is of the greatest value in aid- 

 ing the chemist to see relations and predict results which, without its 

 aid, he might not have discovered at all. Nevertheless, it must be 

 remembered that chemical symbols simply stand for the facts and 

 theories they were devised to express, and for nothing more. They 

 have not the generality of mathematical formula?, and are, therefore, 

 far inferior to such formula? as forms of deductive reasoning. In the 

 pamphlet before us the full meaning of chemical symbols is explained, 

 but they are not used until the principles of the science have been 

 developed. 



An inspection of this pamphlet will show that the author, who has 

 been for thirty years one of the most constant advocates of scientific 

 culture in school and college, has no desire to lower the standard of 

 university education. Except to those who have unusual mathemati- 

 cal and scientific talents the new scheme of preliminary studies is a 

 decidedly more difficult way of entering college than the old classical 

 curriculum. It has, however, a special end in view, and has been 

 adapted to this purpose with great care, and is the result of large 

 experience. Our colleges have always been the nurseries of scholars, 

 of men who knew how "to clothe thought in beautiful and suggestive 

 language, to weave argument into correct and persuasive forms, and to 

 kindle enthusiasm by eloquence." * But we earnestly hope that while 

 rendering as fully as ever this high service to the state by educating 

 the men who will defend the right and repress the wrong, uphold the 

 true and expose the false, these same schools of liberal culture will 

 also do the equally important work of preparing earnest men "to un- 

 ravel the mysteries of the universe, to probe the secrets of disease, to 

 direct the forces of Nature, and to develop the resources of this 

 earth." * 



LIFE IN THE SOUTH-SEA ISLANDS, f 



By Capt.un CTPEIAN BRIDGE, E. N. 



THE inhabitants of the New Hebrides are Melanesians, divided 

 into a multitude of independent and usually hostile tribes. On 

 several islands there are communities of Polynesians, some of whom — 

 as shown by their complexions — have preserved, among their Mela- 



* The writer, in an address to the Harvard Club of Rhode Island, Newport, August 

 25, 1883, and published in this "Monthly" for November of the same year. 



f Abridged from a paper on " Cruises in Melanesia," etc., read before the Royal 

 Geographical Society, April 12, 1886. 



