DARWIX'S BIOGRAPHY. 433 



Dr. Butler's school, as it was strictly classical, 

 nothing* else being taught but a little ancient 

 geography and history. The school as a means 

 of education was to me simply a blank. Dur- 

 ing my whole life I have been singularly in- 

 capable of mastering any language. Especial 

 attention was paid to verse-making, and this 

 I never could do well.' 1 Here is one of the 

 first guns of the great battle between Natural 

 Science and the Classics, about which recent 

 pedagogy has heard so much. The school had 

 no study of Nature for developing the boy's 

 innate bent which showed itself in the fact that 

 "I continued collecting minerals with much 

 zeal but quite unscientifically. I must have 

 gathered insects with some little care," even 

 before the age of ten years. Also he observed 

 birds, and dabbled in chemistry. Evidently 

 the boy Darwin is making his own curriculum 

 of education in strong reaction against the 

 transmitted training through the Classics. 

 Once he was publicly rebuked by the head- 

 master "for thus wasting time on such useless 

 subjects.' 1 



What is to be done with the trifling lad, for 

 so he seems. His father took him away from 

 the classical school, where he "was doing no 

 good,"' and sent him to Edinburgh Univer- 

 sity to study medicine, evidently that he might 

 succeed the father in practice. But here again 



