278 GILBEET WHITE OF SELBORNE 



But the great glory of the book is that it has 

 stimulated so many young people to make a profit- 

 able use of their powers of observation, and, by 

 studying the natural objects around them, to live 

 happier and fuller lives. As a typical instance 

 of this there are two men in the county of Kent, 

 whom circumstances have placed as tradesmen in a 

 small town and village respectively. Each of them 

 has ennobled a life of commerce, and enriched 

 scientific knowledge by his devotion, the one to 

 the geology of the Tertiary strata near Sheerness 

 and to marine zoology ; and the other to an ex- 

 haustive study of the very rude flint implements of 

 early man on the plateau of the North Downs, to 

 which he was the first to draw attention. These 

 gentlemen have stated to the present writer that 

 when young men their thoughts were led to observe 

 matters of interest in their locality by ' The Natural 

 History of Selborne'; thus fulfilling, as doubtless 

 very many others have done, the aspiration of 

 Gilbert White, expressed in the Preface to his book, 

 that he might have "induced his readers to pay a 

 more ready attention to the wonders of Creation." 



How far Gilbert White deserves to be called a 

 great naturalist may be the subject of argument, of 

 doubt; but there can be none that to have taught 

 his countrymen how and what to observe is to have 

 done a very great thing. 



