BOTANICAL ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 171 
gone by the board, and the exercise of mere memory has 
taken its place. But a table of logarithms or a Hebrew 
grammar would serve this purpose equally well. Yet I do 
not despair of Henslow’s work still bearing fruit. The 
examination system will collapse from the sheer impossibility 
of carrying it on beyond a certain point. Freed from its 
trammels, the teacher will have greater scope for individu- 
ality, and the result of his labors will be rewarded after 
some intelligent system of inspection. And here I may 
claim support from an unexpected quarter. Mr. Gladstone 
has recently written to a correspondent:—‘I think that the 
neglect of natural history, in all its multitude of branches, 
was the grossest defect of our old system of training for the 
young; and, further, that little or nothing has been done by 
way of remedy for that defect in the attempts made to alter 
or reform that system.’ I am sure that the importance and 
weight of this testimony, coming as it does from one whose 
training and sympathies have always been literary, cannot 
be denied. 
Oxp Scuoon or Natural History. 
Tf the old school of natural history of which Henslow in 
his day was a living spirit is at present, as seems to be the 
case, continually losing its hold upon us, this has certainly 
not been due to its want of value as an educational discipline, 
or to its sterility in contributing new ideas to human knowl- 
edge. Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ may certainly be 
regarded as its offspring, and of this Huxley says with 
justice: ‘It is doubtful if any single book, except the 
“ Principia,” ever worked so great and rapid a revolution in 
science, or made so deep an impression on the general mind.’ 
Yet Darwin’s biographer, in that admirable Life which ranks 
with the few really great biographies in our language, 
remarks (i. 155): ‘In reading his books one is reminded of 
the older naturalists rather than of the modern school of 
writers. He was a naturalist in the old sense of the word, 
19 Proc. R. S., xliv. xvii. 
