4i6 



NA TURE 



[March 2, 1905 



faithful record of his daily life, stops short long before 

 the date of his election to the chair of the Royal 

 Society, so that we are without any memoranda of 

 his own reg^arding what took place during his tenure 

 of the office. The minute-books of the Society, how- 

 ever, furnish some interesting particulars. 



One of the undertakings of the Royal Society 

 during the time that Pepys presided over its business 

 was the publication of the elaborately illustrated 

 work of Francis Willughby, the " Historia Piscium." 

 It was a somewhat costly production, so that several 

 members of the Society agreed to subscribe for one 

 or more plates, which were to be supplied at the cost 

 of one guinea each. Pepys far surpassed all other 

 subscribers in his generosity, seeing that he paid for 

 no fewer than si.xty plates. The book is appropriately 

 dedicated to him, and when it was ready for issue 

 the council, to mark its appreciation of his assist- 

 ance (June 30, 1686), " ordered that a Book of 

 Fishes, of the best paper, curiously bound in Turkey 

 leather, with an inscription of dedication therein, 

 likewise five others bound also, be presented to the 

 President." On the same occasion the following 

 amusing entry was made on the minutes : — " Ordered 

 that the Society to encourage the measuring a Degree 

 of the Earth do give E. Halley 50L, or fifty Books 

 of Fishes (!) when he shall have measured a degree 

 to the satisfaction of Sir Christopher Wren, the 

 President and Sir John Hoskyns." There is no 

 record to show which alternative the future 

 .-Astronomer Royal accepted. 



Undoubtedly the most important event which 

 occurred at the Royal Society during Pepys' term 

 of office was the acceptance and publication of 

 Newton's immortal "Principia." In the MS. 

 journal-book of the Society under date .\pril 28, 1686, 

 it is recorded that Dr. Vincent " presented the Society 

 with a manuscript Treatise intituled Pliilosophiae 

 Natiiralis Principia matliematica, and dedicated to 

 the Society by Mr. Isaac Newton wherein he gives 

 a mathematical demonstration of the Copernican 

 hypothesis, as proposed by Kepler, and makes out 

 ail the phenomena of the celestial motions by the 

 only supposition of a gravitation towards the centre 

 of the sun, decreasing as the square of the distances 

 therefrom reciprocally. It was ordered that a letter 

 of thanks be wrote to Mr. Newton and that the 

 printing of the book be refer'd to the consideration 

 of the Councell ; in the mean lime the book to be put 

 into the hands of E. Halley, who is to make a report 

 thereof to the Councell." On May 19 it was " ordered 

 that Mr. Newton's book be printed forthwith in a 

 quarto of a fair letter, and that a letter be written 

 to him to signifie the Societye's resolution, and to 

 desire his opinion as to the print, volume, cutts and 

 so forth." On June 30 the council ordered "that 

 the President be desired to licence Mr. Newton's 

 book, dedicated to the Society." Accordingly the 

 title-page of the famous quarto bears the licence in 

 conspicuous print — " Imprimatur, S. Pepys, Reg. 

 Soc. Praeses, Julii 5, 1686." 



Pepys held the office of president for two years, 

 and was succeeded on .St. .Andrew's Day, 1686, by 

 the Earl of Carbery, by whom he was named one of 

 the vice-presidents. Tliough not in any sense a man 

 of science, he was distinguished among his con- 

 temporaries for his keen interest in scientific progress 

 and his eager desire to acquire as much as he could 

 of "natural knowledge." Though careful of his 

 money, he could be generous where the interests of 

 science appealed to him. The absorbing character 

 of his work at the .Admiralty and the enthusiastic 

 devotion with which he applied himself to it no doubt 

 prevented him from taking as active a share in the 

 business of the Royal Society as he would have 



NO. 1844, VOL. 71] 



wished to do. But among the distinguished men who 

 during two centuries and a half have occupied the 

 presidential chair there have been few more entitled 

 to kindly remembrance than Samuel Pepys. 



Arch. Geikie. 



COMPULSORY GREEK AT CAMBRIDGE. 



T T is earnestly to be desired that every member of 

 -»■ the Senate who is on the side of the Studies and 

 Examinations Syndicate will record his vote in favour 

 of their proposals on either Friday or Saturday, 

 March 3 and 4, between the hours of 1-3 p.m. or 

 S-7 P-m- 



The proposals of the syndicate have been in many 

 places misrepresented. The committee which is 

 opposing them heads its manifestoes " Defence of 

 Classical Studies at Cambridge," but no one has yet 

 attacked these studies. It is true that the proposals 

 allow a modern language instead of either Greek or 

 Latin, but every candidate must take one ancient 

 language, and whichever he elects to offer for the 

 Previous Examination he will have in the future to 

 show a really respectable knowledge of that tongue. 

 .\t present, as is demonstrated by the students of 

 Newnham and Girton, and many others, and as letters 

 in N.ATURE have shown, a mere smattering of Greek 

 w'nich can be " got up " in a couple of months is 

 all that can be demanded in view of the existing state 

 of education in our public schools. 



Those who think no man can be cultivated with- 

 out Greek (they do not say the same about women) 

 often forget that the Greeks, who are held to have 

 been incomparable educators, dispensed entirely with 

 the study of dead or foreign languages. They did 

 not educate their sons on a basis of ancient 

 languages, they educated them on their own 

 language and their own literature. The Romans, 

 again, got on very well without studying dead 

 languages. It is true that the educated men in 

 ancient Rome studied the Greek authors, but Greek 

 was to them a living language, and the intercourse 

 between the thinkers and the doers of classical times 

 was at least as close as between the French and 

 British of our own day. 



The supporters of the present proposals are often 

 charged with encouraging undue specialisation. But 

 what do we mean by specialisation ? The term is 

 usually used to denote the study of one subject to 

 the e.xclusion of others. If this definition be sound 

 it is the advocates of what is called compulsory 

 Greek who are the culprits. A boy begins Latin, say, 

 at eight or nine, and shortly afterwards takes up 

 Greek, and for the next nine or ten years, at many 

 of our public schools, does comparatively little else. 

 He has specialised to such an extent, and his 

 intellect is so cramped and dulled by the process, that 

 he not unfrequently fails to reach the low standard 

 of the Previous Examination when he leaves school. 

 Even if he has a real gift for classics he is often but 

 a narrow specialist. Fifty-five years ago a Mr. John 

 Smith published in his " Sketches of Cantabs " an 

 appreciation of the classical man of the middle of the 

 last century. " He seldom reads an English work, 

 and of the history of his native country is strangely, 

 almost supernaturally, ignorant. Passing occur- 

 rences do not affect him. He doesn't care how many 

 men are slaughtered on the banks of the Jhelum. 

 His heart is at Marathon, his sympathies with the 

 great Hannibal at Cannae." We have improved 

 since then, but the type is not extinct. 



It is to be regretted that the proposals do little to 

 encourage science. It must distinctly be understood 

 ihat the alternative to Greek or Latin is not science. 



