186 GALEOMMIDiE. 



brated voyage in the f Astrolabe/ France, Russia, Austria, 

 and even the comparatively poor kingdom of Sweden, 

 as well as the United States, have excelled us in such 

 enterprises ; and all that our own wealthy nation has 

 undertaken in this way of late years has been more 

 owing to a spirit of commercial enterprise than to a 

 desire of promoting philosophical knowledge. Surely 

 some of our numerous smaller ships of war and their 

 hardy crews might be advantageously employed in sci- 

 entific expeditions to various parts of the world, instead 

 of the vessels rotting in harbour, and our seamen be- 

 coming discontented by an irksome and monotonous 

 routine of discipline. The stale question of cui bono 

 might be easily answered by pointing to such men as 

 Sabine, Fitzroy, Darwin, Joseph Hooker, Busk, Hux- 

 ley, Jukes and others, who were formerly educated in 

 similar voyages of research. The influence of their 

 works on the mind and character of the people has been 

 eminently and notoriously beneficial ; and we should all 

 have deep cause for regret, were this race of great 

 masters to become extinct and be superseded by a class 

 of political economists who could only teach us where 

 cotton might be best obtained, or what effect a gold 

 instead of a paper currency may have on the material 

 prosperity of the next generation. No thinking person 

 will deny that science ought to be an important branch 

 of national education. If any part of the public money 

 is to be so applied, teachers of natural history must be 

 instructed — not as at present by skimming books of 

 doubtful authority and superficial information, but by a 

 course of sound and practical lessons, such as would be 

 acquired by means of voyages of discovery. The notion 

 that science can take care of itself, and that its votaries 

 can provide their own amusement, is only another 



