338 
el rORE 
[FEBRUARY I1, 1897 
It is noteworthy that M. Berthelot is in agreement 
with those of us who hold that our children—especially 
girls—are too frequently subject to severe over-pressure 
owing to the multiplicity of subjects they are forced to 
study at school. 
“A surcharger esprit des enfants par acquisition 
réelle ou prétendue de tant de connaissances diverses, on 
risque de le fatiguer avant Vheure et d’en empécher 
Yévolution normale. On ruine en méme temps la santé 
a Page du développement physique ; risque plus marqué 
encore pour les jeunes filles que pour les jeunes garcons.” 
And he also corroborates the view that great injury is 
often done by preparation for examinations. Thus, 
speaking of those who are preparing to compete for 
admission into higher schools, such as the Ecole 
polytechnique, he writes :— 
*“Tandis que les candidats futurs s’y consacrent tout 
entiers, souvent avec un effort excessif qui épuise leur 
santé, ils abdiquent leur individualité et, absorbés par le 
mécanisme de la préparation, ils perdent, eux aussi, la 
curiosité et amour de la réflexion originale.” 
Would that this doctrine could be brought home to, 
and made popular with, our Indian Civil Service Com- 
missioners and other such examining bodies. Perhaps 
the country will some day realise what price it has paid 
for the destruction of nepotism, even if it do not question 
the efficacy of the method it has adopted; and at 
least we may hope that in times to come, medical men 
will respect the injunction, “Physician, heal thyself,” 
after recognising the injury that is done by over-study 
to the mental powers of students qualifying to join the 
profession. But those will be days when true morality 
will have a place in education because true science has 
found a place in it. 
“La haute culture et la loi militaire” is an interesting 
report of speeches delivered in the Senate in 1888-89, 
which were directed against the introduction of a law 
making three years’ military service compulsory on all 
classes, and favouring the limitation of service to a much 
shorter period in the case of the student class, who are 
pictured as the backbone of the community. In the 
course of this debate M. Berthelot made the interesting 
statement that he is the grandson of a village farrier. 
The biographical sketches in the volume include 
graceful notices of Pasteur, Claude Bernard, Paul Bert, 
and F. André, 
In a charming account of the doings of a colony of 
ants which he had sought to dislodge, M. Berthelot 
displays himself as an ardent naturalist observer as well 
as psychologist ; but it is not the first time that he has 
appeared in such a character—indeed, he tells us that 
he has for years past made these remarkable insects the 
subject of careful study. 
The historical essays printed in the latter part of the 
volume are good examples of his style and versatility : 
that on the discovery of alcohol and of distillation, as 
well as that on the origin of chemical industries, may be 
specially commended to chemists as being full of interest ; 
the essay on Papin is an eloquent attempt to do further 
justice to the memory of one for whom a capital share in 
the invention of the steam-engine may be claimed. 
Very appropriately, as emphasising the point of view 
NO. 1424, VOL. 55] 
taken throughout the work, M. Berthelot publishes, as 
the last chapter in the volume, a speech delivered in 
1894, in which a fanciful sketch is given of the changes 
that it may be expected will have been brought about 
at the close of another century—in 2000—through the 
introduction of science into all our affairs :— 
“Dans ce temps-la, il n’y aura plus dans le monde ni 
agriculture, ni patres, ni laboureurs: le probléme de 
Vexistence par la culture de sol aura été supprimé par 
la chimie! I] n’y aura plus de mines de charbon de 
terres, ni d’industriés souterraines, ni par conséquent 
de gréves de mineurs! Le probléme des combustibles 
aura été supprimé par le concours de la chimie et de la 
physique. I] n’y aura plus ni douanes, ni protection- 
nisme, ni guerres, ni frontiéres arrosés de sang humain! 
La navigation aérienne, avec ses moteurs empruntés 
aux €nergies chimiques, aura relégué ces institutions 
surannées dans le passé! Nous serons alors bien préts 
de réaliser les réves du socialisme . . . pourvu que l’on 
réussisse a découvrir une chimie spirituelle, qui change 
la nature morale de Vhomme aussi profondément que 
notre chimie transforme la nature matérielle ! ” 
It is suggested that we shall have tapped the central 
fires of the earth, and thence derive our supplies of 
energy, and that we shall live on tabloids artificially 
prepared. As a modest picture of the chemist’s potential 
activity, the sketch is perfect, and it is unfortunate that 
it is necessary to introduce so important a pourvu gue 
in order to keep expectation within due bounds! M. 
Berthelot is even a little inconsequent, and forgets, per- 
haps, that in an earlier address on the place of science 
In agriculture he paints a somewhat different picture 
and, perhaps, a nobler one :— 
“Or nul idéal n’est supérieur a celui de Vagriculture. 
La vie des champs est le type normal de la vie humaine. 
La seulement, homme se développe en toute plénitude. 
La vie des champs favorise 4 la fois la santé matérielle 
des corps et la santé morale de l’esprit. Le paysan 
robuste, laborieux et intelligent, a toujours fait la force 
des nations.” ; 
If agriculturists are thrown out of employment by the 
disappearance of agriculture, what are they todo? All 
cannot engage in the manufacture of compressed food in 
the synthetical laboratories which will supersede Nature ; 
and besides this to waste solar energy in the manner 
implied would be unscientific. Moreover, even the most 
ardent evolutionist will require more than one hundred 
years to reduce the stomach of the city alderman to such 
dimensions that a few wafers of nitrogenous and carbo- 
hydrate materials will suffice to produce in it the effect 
of a full meal, even if fed besides with speeches of 
inordinate length and dulness. 
But closely as he enters into competition with Jules 
Verne, in the course of his “excellent fooling,” M. Ber- 
thelot does not venture to look across the water and 
comfort us with the assurance that in the year 2000 we 
shall have a Minister of Education whose interest in the 
subject will be in some measure comparable with that 
of his distinguished French predecessor of a century 
before, and that there will be a true university established 
in London in which all branches of science and morality 
will consort and prevail in place of examinations and 
narrow-mindedness. No doubt he desired to draw the 
line at the probable. Pee A 
