78 ADVANTAGES OF ACADEMICAL EDUCATION IN PREPARING 



of that combination of scientific with philological knowledge, 

 in the minds of the investigators, by which Dr. Young was so 

 eminently distinguished, and to illustrate the utility of which 

 is the object of the preceding details. 



Such are the considerations which have induced me to 

 urge the importance, of combining the Knowledge of Nature 

 with the pursuits of Classical Literature. I cannot however 

 quit this subject without acknowledging, on the other hand, 

 the inestimable advantages which have accrued to the Physical 

 sciences, especially within the present century, from so many 

 of their cultivators having been prepared for their study, by 

 that Academical Education, in which Classical Literature 

 forms so considerable a department. A member of the Uni- 

 versity of Oxford, some years ago, cited the case of the con- 

 tributions of the Oxford School of Geology to that science, 

 as affording " a striking and satisfactory proof," " in opposi- 

 tion to the misrepresentations of shallow sciolists", that " the 

 institutions of academical education are far from unfavourable 

 to the cultivation of the physical sciences, and that an ignorance 

 of the rules of classical composition, and of the languages, and 

 philosophy of polished antiquity, are by no means essential ad- 

 vantages in researches of this nature : it has been rather seen 



Quid mens rite, quid indoles 

 Nutrita faustis sub penetralibus 

 Posset." * 



In addition to the implied explanation here given of the 

 use of academical education in preparing the mind for the 

 study of physics, it may be observed that there are two spe- 

 cific and direct sources of that utility : viz. the finished in- 

 struction in mathematics, and in the ancient languages of 

 Greece and Rome in Classical Literature and Philology, 

 which the students receive. The former species of knowledge, 

 by imparting that of form, in all its relations, and that of the 

 imaginary points, lines, and planes, to which the various acci- 

 dents of extension are referred, as well as by the nomenclature 

 with respect to form and quantity, which it conveys, gives accu- 

 racy to observation, and corresponding precision and facility to 

 description. The latter, by the acquaintance it communicates 

 with the etymology, and the etymological signification, of the 

 words we have derived from the dead languages, as well as 

 by the extensive knowledge of words themselves which it 

 conveys, enables the philosopher either to employ accu- 

 rately definitive terms, selected from among those already 



* Conybeare, " Outlines," Introduction, p. xlviii. 



