238 ESSAYS BIOGRAPHICAL AND CHEMICAL 



blame ; originally started to remedy the abuses of our Civil 

 Service, it has eaten into the vitals of our educational 

 system like a canker; and it is fostered by the farther 

 abuse of awarding scholarships as the results of examina- 

 tions. The pauperisation of the richer classes is a crying 

 evil; it must some day be cured. Let scholarships be 

 awarded to those who need them ; not to those whose 

 fathers can well afford to pay for the education of their 

 children. ' Pot-hunting ' and Philosophy have absolutely 

 nothing in common. 



There are some who hold that the time of an investi- 

 gator is wasted in teaching the elements of his subject. I 

 am not one of those who believe this doctrine, and for two 

 reasons : first, it is more difficult to teach the elements 

 of a subject than the more advanced branches ; one learns 

 the tricks of the trade by long practice ; and the tricks of 

 this trade consist in the easy and orderly presentment of 

 ideas. And it is the universal experience that senior 

 students gain more good from instruction in advanced 

 subjects by demonstrators than juniors would in elementary 

 subjects. For the senior student makes allowances ; and 

 the keenness and interest of the young instructor awakens 

 his interest. Second, from the teachers' point of view, it 

 is always well to be obliged to go back on fundamentals. 

 One is too apt, without the duty of delivering elementary 

 lectures, to take these fundamentals for granted ; whereas, 

 if they are recapitulated every year, the light of other 

 knowledge is brought to bear on them, and they are given 

 their true proportion; indeed, ideas occur which often 

 suggest lines of research. It is really the simplest things 

 which we know least of; the atomic theory; the true 

 nature of elasticity; the cause of the ascent of sap in 

 plants; the mechanism of exchange in respiration and 

 digestion; all these lie at the base of their respective 

 sciences, and all could bear much elucidation. I believe 



