No. XX.] APPENDIX. 285 



3. The same class of boys are sent to the grammar schools as to the 

 proprietary schools : hence their requirements demand a similar education. 

 For instance, an education which is good for King's College would be good 

 for St. Paul's, Westminster, or Merchant Taylors', as the boys in each case 

 belong to the middle class of society. 



Different classes of society manifestly require, in many respects, a 

 very different education ; nevertheless, amongst all classes, there are many 

 points in common. A knowledge of the properties of numbers and of 

 physical forces is as useful to the poor as to the rich. The master who 

 orders the steam-engine to be manufactured should understand its 

 several parts and the power which it is likely to possess. The engineer 

 who designs the steam-engine must of necessity be fully acquainted with 

 its principles and properties. The man who works the steam-engine should 

 equally understand the principles upon which it is constructed ; and the 

 mechanic who makes the engine would be the more trustworthy servant if 

 he possessed the intelligence to comprehend the nature of his work and 

 were fully aware of the purposes for which each part was destined. 



A knowledge of the properties of matter and of physical forces should 

 be taught to every child, irrespective of station or future occupation. It 

 cannot fail to be useful in every grade of life, should be regarded as the 

 foundation of secular knowledge, and taught at every school. 



In this country, the people, as a mass, seem to be greatly destitute of 

 an acute appreciation of colour and form. To acquire a knowledge of this 

 character, Nature must be studied. The beautiful flower, the elegant plant, 

 or the symmetrical proportions of animated life must be observed, and their 

 appearance fixed upon the mind at an early period of life. 



The appreciation of beauty is as suitable for those in a lower as for 

 those in a higher station of society ; yet the difficulties presented to the 

 observation of Nature in the environs of a large metropolis are far beyond 

 what might have been anticipated. 



Many a time I have seen troops of police scouring the woods in the 

 vicinity of London to prevent an invasion of property by an entomologist 

 catching an insect, or a flower- seeker gathering a primrose. 



At every school there can be no reason for the omission of botanical 

 and natural history rambles under the surveillance of competent persons. 

 At medical schools it is the practice of the professor to take such rambles, 

 and the day is much enjoyed by the pupils. Independently of the pleasure 

 derivable from such rambles, which cannot fail to endear the master to the 

 pupil, the mind would be thereby led not to despise the beautiful because 

 it is common ; and would be trained to admire and to study the form and 

 colouring of Nature, the only reliable guide for the artist or designer. 



Even with respect to works of art, the mass of the people have the 

 greatest difficulty in obtaining copies of approved examples, or of viewing 

 approved devices; and consequently their education on this score is 

 extremely defective, and their taste extensively vitiated. When I first 

 prosecuted my electro-metallurgic researches, I thought that some system 

 might be adopted to enable the public to obtain copies of the beautiful 

 coins or medals of antiquity ; but I found that although the cabinets and 

 museums were freely open to me, yet they were practically closed to the 

 working man. I have on several occasions been employed on the part of 

 the Crown to give evidence against false coiners, who might have earned 

 a large remuneration if they had had subjects upon which they might have 



