28 LEISURE-TIME STUDIES. 



the relations of our studies, firstly, to that training of the 

 mind and intellect we usually denominate by the general 

 term Education ; and secondly, to certain plain aspects of 

 every-day life. My colleague, the lecturer on chemistry, 

 would require to offer no such apology or explanation, since 

 the relations of chemistry to the improvement of the arts 

 and manufactures are too obvious to need comment. Nor 

 need you demand from the lecturer on physiology an estimate 

 of the value of the information he imparts to working men 

 and working women. Whoever values that health, which to 

 all men is the best kind of wealth, and which is to very 

 many their chief stock-in-trade ; whoever desires the wisdom 

 wherewith to know how to live wisely and well in a physical 

 sense, can require no argument to bring home conviction as 

 to the utility of a knowledge of the laws of. life and health. 

 Your studies in English or foreign literature; your close atten- 

 tion to the study of mechanics and natural philosophy, are 

 not only to be commended, but represent, in many cases, ab- 

 solutely essential details in your daily life and labours. With 

 my own department of study, however, the case is different. 

 You may reasonably inquire what use zoological study can 

 subserve in the case of general students, and what profit 

 can its cultivation ensure ? It is to the task of answering 

 these most natural queries that I now purpose to address 

 myself. 



Let me, firstly, note, that those who object to study any 

 subject which they themselves deem unconnected with their 

 own special life and avocation, commit the illogical, and 

 I must say illiberal, mistake of seeking to limit their intel- 

 lectual progress from a very unreasonable motive and cause. 

 Because such persons consider any particular study of no 

 use, or, what is still more absurd, because they think that it 

 cannot be of any future service to them, the study is rejected. 

 Eut one is naturally tempted to ask of such persons how, 

 without pretending to possess a special gift of prophecy, 

 they can attain to any knowledge of what will or what will 

 not be of service to them in the future ? Who can, in the 



