42 



NATURE 



{^Nov. 1 8, 1875 



more and more extended, her methods are becoming 

 more and more complicated, and her instruments more 

 and more expensive ; in almost every department paths 

 are being opened up which, if pursued to their end, would 

 certainly lead to discoveries of vital importance to the 

 best welfare and prosperity of the nation. Our public 

 men are continually telling us that we are being out- 

 stripped by continental nations in fields which used to 

 be peculiarly our own, and that simply because abroad 

 every encouragement is given to scientific research, while 

 here its existence is either ignored or it is regarded as a 

 mere pastime. We can only think that Mr. Gladstone 

 must have been imperfectly informed, or that he felt him- 

 self bound for the occasion to assume the position of 

 special pleader on behalf of Art, which really^can take 

 very good care of herself. 



We are grateful, however, for the unmistakable manner 

 in which he referred to the City Companies. He put the 

 case exactly as it ought to be put, and did not in the least 

 exaggerate the crying scandal. Their pharisaical trum- 

 peting of the pittances they dole out in the way of 

 charity blinds very few, we should think, to the disgrace- 

 ful way in which they discharge the stewardship of the 

 enormous funds committed to their trust. What are these 

 eleemosynary pittances compared to the sums they 

 lavish yearly on their ponderous entertainments, relics of 

 long past generations, when men were some stages 

 nearer the lower animals than they are now, but 

 which are now meaningless and out of date ? These 

 Corporations, though there are some wide-awake, prac- 

 tical, and, we must believe, advanced and cultivated 

 men among them, seem to be quite unconscious of 

 their lethargic, antiquated, and even dangerous position. 

 We say " dangerous," for it is high time they should 

 know that if they do not wake up out of their lethargy, and 

 set their own house in order, they must very soon be 

 wakened by a shock from without. The country cannot 

 much longer forbear calling them to give an account 

 of their valuable stewardship, and a sorry account, we 

 fear they must render. It cannot be tolerated that while 

 the advancement of the highest interests of the country is 

 most seriously crippled for want of necessary means, those 

 funds which were left by our benevolent predecessors in 

 trust for the country's good, should rust in a useless 

 napkin or be drawn upon only for the sensual gratification 

 of those who foolishly fancy themselves their irresponsible 

 trustees. 



CHAMBERS S ENCYCLOPEDIA 



Chambers's Encyclopadia, a Dictionary of Useful Know- 

 ledge for the People. Illustrated with Maps and nume- 

 rous Wood Engravings. Revised Edition. Ten vols. 

 (Edinburgh and London : W. and R. Chambers, 1874.) 



WHEN the history of the English people during the 

 present century comes to be written by some 

 future Green — or it may be by the present one — the 

 name of the publishing firm of W. and R. Chambers 

 must be referred to with honour as having had a con- 

 siderable share in fostering the great intellectual awaken- 

 ing among the people which was initiated in the earher 

 part of the century. By means of their Journal, which 

 still maintains an honourable place among popular serials, 



their Information^ their Miscellany, and other similar pub- 

 lications, they supplied the growing appetite of the people 

 for useful knowledge with healthy and invigorating food, 

 which at the same time stimulated a craving for more. We 

 believe that in this way the Messrs. Chambers have done 

 much to create the general want among the middle and 

 lower classes which is now being gradually supplied by 

 more organised and systematic means of instruction and 

 culture. They were also among the first, if not the first, 

 to publish for the use of schools a carefully compiled and 

 almost complete series of text-books of science, a series 

 which held its place for a long time, though no doubt now 

 somewhat out of date, if not largely out of print. The 

 crowning effort of this firm to provide " the people " with 

 the means of obtaining useful and accurate information is 

 no doubt to be seen in the " Encyclopsedia " which they 

 have brought out under the editorial care of Dr. Andrew 

 Findlater. 



Previous to the publication of this " Encyclopaedia," 

 which began to be issued in i860, and to go no farther 

 back than the present century, a large number of books of 

 reference of this class had been published both in England 

 and Scotland, but they were all works of a ponderous size 

 and constructed pretty much after the plan of the " Bri- 

 tannica," consisting mainly of long treatises on the various 

 departments of knowledge. The Messrs. Chambers, how- 

 ever, took as their model Brockhaus's well-known " Con- 

 versations-Lexicon," and have broken down, as they 

 express it, the various masses of systematic knowledge, to 

 as great a degree as is consistent with the separate expla- 

 nation of the several fragments. No doubt this is 

 the only satisfactory plan for a dictionary of universal in- 

 formation, which, first of all, ought to be a handy refer- 

 ence book. It is for this very reason that the alphabetical 

 arrangement is used, and we do not see that much is gained 

 by such an arrangement, if an encyclopaedia is to consist 

 of a collection of exhaustive treatises, requiring an enor- 

 mous index to make them consultable. As a handy book 

 of reference, then, the plan of " Chambers's Encyclopsedia " 

 is all that could be desired. Of course there is a limit to 

 the cutting down of subjects for purposes of reference, 

 and Dr. Findlater has shown great shrewdness and 

 common sense in fixing this limit. Perhaps some might 

 desire an encyclopaedia with a more copious vocabulary, 

 with a fuller list of subjects, more condensed information, 

 and in every case where practicable a copious biblio- 

 graphy ; but for the great bulk of the people, the encyclo- 

 paedia before us will be found to answer with singular 

 completeness all the purposes of a book of reference. 

 Between the body of the work and the copious index there 

 is little that any ordinary man will want to inquire about 

 which he will not find information upon here, and that 

 speedily. In many cases references to special authorities 

 furnish the means of pursuing a subject further. 



As to the quality of the work we can speak with almost 

 unqualified approval We have said that the " Ency- 

 clopsedia " is modelled after the German " Conversa- 

 tions-Lexicon." Indeed, the Preface states that it 

 was at first intended to translate almost literally the 

 German work, but that after the work of translating had 

 been gone on with for some time, it was seen that an 

 encyclopaedia adapted to the English public would have 

 to be constructed on an independent basis. This has 



