388 SCIENCE TEACHING : EXAMINATIONS 



If I had asked him the economic value of Eosaceae he would 

 have quoted Shillelaghs ! Another told me that the freezing 

 point of water was 50 below zero, and another that the 

 boiling point was fixed by filling a thermometer tube with 

 boiling mercury ! What are your Colleges of Surgeons about ? 

 Some of their licentiates are consummate ignoramuses. 



Nevertheless he was convinced of the value of Botany in 

 medical education, writing to Henslow in 1855 : 



I wish very much you could afford half an hour to think 

 over the subject of ' Botany as a branch of education and 

 a means of mental culture specially adapted to the early 

 education of Medical men,' and send me a few notions on 

 the subject. I am preparing a notice of the mode of con- 

 ducting the Botanical Examinations for the E.I.C., and 

 want to drive it into the heads of Medical men and students ; 

 that it is not with the hope that the Botanical knowledge 

 obtained will ever be of the slightest direct advantage to 

 the man in practice that it should be taught, but because 

 a right elementary knowledge is necessary to the right 

 understanding of the Pharmacopoeia, Hygiene, therapeutics, 

 Mat. Med., etc., and especially because the mental training 

 of a good elementary Botanical or Nat. Hist, course is the 

 best means of becoming skilful in diagnosis of diseases and 

 of developing his ideas. I am, however, a bad hand at 

 expressing my ideas in mental philosophy and 'yet would 

 like to do it properly. 



Thus he was the more bent upon establishing good scientific 

 teaching and reasonable examinations. He is consulted by 

 Henslow in 1855 as to the papers the latter is setting in the 

 Tripos at Cambridge, and later by Harvey on the corresponding 

 papers set at Dublin. In querying various points he says 

 to Henslow (March 15) : * I am no scholar, but sometimes 

 do instinctively sniff out a clumsy expression, and in this case 

 certainly did not know a good one.' In another case, criticising 

 the wording of a sentence, ' I do not doubt you mean right, 

 but it appeared very wrong on the paper.' He also urges 

 Henslow not to use a descriptive term which had already 

 failed to win general acceptance among botanists. 



