APPENDIX. 



Letter from the Rev. Tliomas Newcome, M.A., Rector of Shen- 

 ley, Herts, on a Plan for instituting Professorships of Zoology 

 in the English Universities. 



Shenley Parsonage, 7th March, 1834. 

 My dear Sir, 



Concurring with you in opinion that the Government of 

 this great country does less for the encouragement of science 

 than that of any other civilised state, I am not disposed to 

 admit that our English universities and ecclesiastical establish- 

 ment are copartners with our civil governors in the disgrace 

 attaching to them by this statement of a fact. As to " Natural 

 History," as a science, it was not " come to the birth" — was 

 scarce indeed conceived, or in embryo state — at the time when 

 the several colleges were founded, and scholarships and fellow- 

 ships endowed, by the pious and munificent of days gone by. 

 These men saw and felt the want of something more imme- 

 diately necessary than science itself; and it is no imputation 

 on their judgment or their charity — on their heads or their 

 hearts — that they provided, in the first place, and by due 

 preference, "for their own." Had they not done so, they 

 would have been " worse than the infidel " of modern times, 

 who endows no institution for the promotion of that science he 

 affects to value as the favourite of Liberals, and the one thing 

 " useful." Considering, however, how delightful a study, and 

 how cheap an amusement is ever within the reach of the 

 " country parson," in any branch of natural history, such as .1 

 Herbert might recommend to him by precept, and a White of 

 Selborne or a Kirby by example, — such, too, that no Squire 

 can grudge the Rector his field sports in this kind, nor Bishop 

 will deny or discourage their prosecution, — that natural reli- 

 gion is the basis of revealed, and is itself built on some observ- 

 ation of nature*, I would propose the endowment of ■ Pro- 



* Romans i. 20. Psalm xix. 1. Acts xiv. 17. and xvii. 17. 

 GG 2 



