l62 NATURAL SCIENCE. March. 



are held by graduates de\"oted to scientific research. Nearly all these, 

 too, are in the hands of physicists and mathematicians ; while only 

 one is held by a zoologist. Considering that more than 200 classical 

 and historical scholars are thus favoured, the division of honours is 

 certainly as unfair an arrangement as can well be imagined. We 

 may appropriately ask, with a critic in the Daily Chronicle of February 

 13, whether the amount of research published by Oxford men in. 

 classics and history is 200 times as great as that accomplished in 

 zoology ; and, with that writer, we may further truly exclaim : — 



" The reverse might not be quite accurate, but it would be most 

 unquestionably nearer the truth. A great mass of Oxford fellows are 

 persons who batten for life on the college funds, because, when boys,, 

 they passed a successful examination. Like the Rev. Mr. Pontifex,. 

 they obtained honours in examination. They, furthermore, resemble 

 that divine in having afterwards abandoned their studies. At twenty- 

 three years of age it is extremely creditable to have got a ' first- 

 class,' but the reputation so earned can hardly be considered a claim 

 at sixty-three. I have heard it urged in palliation of the inactivity of 

 the classical fellow, as contrasted with the science man, that there is 

 less new work to be done in the former subjects. I beg leave to 

 doubt this ; but if it be true, then all the more reason to encourage 

 a subject where there is still a wide field open to the investigator. 

 If the colleges were to bestow their fellowships not by exami- 

 nation, but after the candidates have established some claim by 

 original investigation, there would be a wholesome weeding out of 

 those whose interest in their subject and capabiliiies were of the 

 purely text-book order, ^^■ith a test of this kind there would be some 

 hope for the adequate recognition of science, and really able men 

 would be attracted to Oxford, and stay there. Above all, that most 

 delusive weed of university growth, the man of promise, would be- 

 rooted out, and his place taken by the man of performance." 



As Professor Lankester remarks in his " Appeal," there is not 

 much doubt that financial considerations on the part of those Fellows. 

 who are interested in the subjects taught in a college are at the root 

 of the difficulty. Until some change can be effected in these funda- 

 mental matters, there is thus but slight hope of a due recognition of 

 Natural Science, which can only be taught in the University labora- 

 tories and museums. That the reformation will come sooner or- 

 later is inevitable, and we trust its advent may be speedy. 



Mechanical Evolution. 



We have on previous occasions alluded to the speculations of 

 the American school of zoology in reference to the mechanical origin 

 of the various arrangements observed in the vertebrate skeleton. 

 According to these authors, under the leadership of Professor Cope,, 

 there is every reason to believe (i) thai living bony tissue is plastic, 

 and therefore readily modified in its form by impacts, strains, friction, 

 &:c., and (ii) that acquired characters are inherited. Every process 



