8 The Naturalist of Cumbrae. 



even a moderate measure of early education, it is all 

 but certain that David Robertson would have come 

 to the front much earlier than he did, and that he 

 would have taken a more independent position than 

 he has done among scientific authorities. 



If education has the value that almost all the 

 modern world is willing to allow it, the want of it can 

 scarcely be anything else but a drawback. Still, an 

 active mind, even without printed books arid profes- 

 sional teachers, reads and learns, and becomes a 

 treasury of observed facts which to others are often 

 only remembered statements. Had our friend David 

 stayed a few more years at school, he might eventually 

 have written some great books, of which there are 

 already a good few in the world ; but his life would 

 probably have been commonplace, and he would have 

 had little time for the exceptional work which he has 

 done in zoological collecting, in observing the habits 

 and customs of marine animals, and in assisting and 

 spurring on other workers in natural history. 



