252 WORK AT CAMBRIDGE 



He never ceased to lament his lack of an early 

 training in Zoology, and quite unjustly accused him- 

 self of narrow-mindedness. Such a charge could never 

 be brought against the man who encouraged F. M. 

 Balfour in 1875 to establish a class in Morphology, a 

 subject of which he (Newton) was quite without know- 

 ledge ; he gave up his own private room in the Museum 

 to Balfour's class, and did everything he could to 

 promote its success. 



The narrow-mindedness of which I accuse myself has 

 reference to other branches of science than Ornithology ; 

 in that I believe I have always been fairly afield, and if 

 I had only had anything of a scientific education, such 

 as boys and young men nowadays so easily get, I dare 

 say I should have been more tolerant of conchologists 

 and such like. You may imagine what a grind it was 

 when, at 37, I had to get up the animal kingdom for 

 myself and by myself in order to teach its nature to 

 others ! I often wonder if some of my earlier pupils 

 remember the astonishing blunders I know I used to 

 make. Fortunately, very few of my classes knew any- 

 thing about the subject, and I used to contrive to make 

 some of those that did teach me.* 



He admitted frankly that the study of the Invertehrata 

 had little attraction for him, and he heaved a sigh of 

 relief when in the course of his lectures he reached more 

 congenial Orders. 



November 23, 1877. 



My dear Lilford, 



I have been busying myself, as usual at this 

 time of the year, with animals very unlike birds ; going 

 through the customary course of Invertebrates and, as 

 in each preceding year, becoming convinced of the 

 hopelessness of anybody being able to comprehend the 

 length and breadth and depth of them. These 



* Letter to Col. H. W. Feilden, June 26, 1886. 



