NATURE 
317 
to say that the quality of the teaching in any institution must 
depend upon the qualifications of the teachers, and that none of 
the three Colleges I have named need shrink from a comparison 
in this respect with any Government school at present in existence. 
In answer to these considerations it might perhaps be urged 
that it is the duty of Government to secure efficient public servants, 
and that they are not called upon to consider how far private 
institutions are benefited or injured by the means that appear 
necessary for this purpose, To this I reply that, even adopting 
for the sake of argument this point of view, it is the imperative 
duty of Government not to spend public funds in doing what is 
already well done by private effort ; and that, if anything was 
required which is not already supplied, public money would be 
far more productively expended in helping existing institutions to 
supply the defect, than in founding a new institution which will 
have to be supported entirely at the national expense. The ob- 
viously proper plan is for Government to test the qualifications of 
candidates for the public service with any degree of strictness they 
may think proper, but not to burden the country with the ex- 
pense of educating them. 
Perhaps, however, the assumption with which I started may 
be entirely wrong, and the proposed Engineering College may 
be intended to supply only a purely professional training. — If this 
be so, there is even less to be said for it than before. In this 
case it will be merely a ‘‘ Technical School,” attempting to im- 
part the knowledge and experience which can only be really ac- 
quired by actual practice under a working engineer. 
In any case it seems strange that Government should announce 
its intention of establishing an Engineering College at the very 
time when a Royal Commission is making ‘‘ inquiry with regard 
to Scientific Instruction, . . . . and the aid thereto 
fee from grants voted by Parliament.” 
niversity College, London, Aug. 15 G. C, FosTER 
OUR SALAD HERBS 
(PBL is perhaps no country in the world so rich as 
England in native materials for salad-making, and 
none in which ignorance and prejudice have more re- 
stricted their employment. At every season of the year 
the peasant may cull from the field and hedge-row whole- 
some herbs which would impart a pleasant variety to his 
monotonous meal, and save his store of potatoes from pre- 
mature exhaustion ; and there can be no question that in 
hot seasons a judicious admixture of fresh green food is 
as salutary as it is agreeable. Much has been said lately 
about the advantage which the labouring man would 
derive from an accurate acquaintance with the various 
sorts of fungus, and he has been gravely told that the #zs- 
tulina hepatica is an admirable substitute for beef-steak, 
and the Agaricus gambosus for the equally unknown veal 
cutlet. But deep-rooted suspicion is not easily eradicated, 
and there will always be a certain amount of hazard in 
dealing with a class of products in which the distinc- 
tions between noxious and innocuous are not very clearly 
marked. ‘There is not this difficulty with regard to salad 
herbs, and we conceive that the diffusion of a little know- 
ledge as to their properties and value would be an un- 
mixed benefit to our rural population. 
The first place must be assigned, on the score of an- 
tiquity, to the sorrel plant (Awex acetosa), which in some 
districts still preserves the name of “ green sauce,” as- 
signed to it in early times when it formed almost the only 
dinner vegetable. Its acid is pleasant and wholesome, 
and more delicate in flavour than that of the wood-sorrel 
(Oxalis acetosa), which, however, is used for table purposes 
in Franceand Germany. Chervil (Amthriscus cerefolium) 
is often found in a wild state and isan admirable addition 
to the salad bowl ; and it is unnecessary to enlarge upon 
the virtues of celery (Apium graveolens) when improved 
by cultivation. John Ray, writing in 1663, says that “ The 
Italians use several herbs for sallets which are not yet, 
or have not been used lately, but in England,viz., sed/erz, 
which is nothing else but the sweet smallage ; the young 
shoots whereof, with a little of the head of the root cut 
may add that the alisander (Sweyrndune olusatrum) is no 
bad substitute for its better known congener. The dan- 
delion, which in France is blanched for the purpose, 
affords that amari aliguid which the professed salad 
maker finds in the leaves of the endive, and the same es- 
sential ingredient may be supplied by the avens (Geum u7- 
banum), the bladder campion (.S2/ene znflata), and the ten- 
der shoots of the wild hop. Most people are familiar with 
the properties of the water cress (asturtium officinale), 
and the garlic hedge mustard (rys¢mum alliaria) ; but it 
may not be generally known that the common shepherd’s 
purse (Capsella bursa-pastorts) and Lady’s smock (Carda- 
mine pratensts) are pleasant additions, whose merits have 
long been recognised by our foreign neighbours, In fact 
there is scarcely a herb that grows which has not some culti- 
nary virtue ina French peasant’s eyes. Out of the blanched 
shoots of the wild chicory (Cichorium tntybus), he forms the 
well-known Barbe des Capucins, and dignifies with the title 
of Salad: de Chanoine our own neglected corn salad (Fedia 
olitoria). It would be very easy to extend the dimensions 
of our list of native salad herbs, for there are, perhaps, some 
palates to which the strong flavours of the chive (dé/ium 
schenoprasum) and stone-crop (Sedu reflexum) may 
commend themselves, but enough has been said to show 
that Nature has not dealt niggardly with us, and that 
only knowledge is needful to make the riches she offers 
available. If the British peasant can be taught to dis- 
cover hidden virtues in these plants with whose outward 
forms he has had life-long familiarity, we do not despair 
of his acquiring the one secret of salad-making, viz., the 
judicious employment of oil so as to correct the acrid juices 
of the plants and yet preserve their several flavours un- 
impaired. C. J. ROBINSON 
TESTIMONIAL TO PROF. MORRIS, F.G.S. 
hee presentation of a testimonial to Prof. Morris on 
July 14, was the occasion of the meeting of nearly 
one hundred gentlemen, occupying prominent positions 
in connection with geology and the allied sciences. 
Sir Roderick I. Murchison, Bart., K.C.B., occupied the 
chair, and, in opening the business of the day, expressed 
the sincere gratification he experienced in having been re- 
quested by the subscribers to this Testimonial to act as 
Chairman onan occasion when it was sought to do honour 
to Prof. Morris, whom he highly esteemed as a geologist, 
and whom he loved as a friend. He then gave a sketch 
of the career of Prof. Morris as a geologist, showing that 
in his earlier researches he was among the first to make 
most valuable communications upon the structure and 
fossil contents of the Tertiary formation of the South 
and East of England; and how he next threw much 
new light upon various members of the Oolitic formation 
and the Lias, describing the fossil contents with great 
acumen and ability. These were followed by his opus 
magnum, the “ Catalogue of all British Fossils,” which 
had gone through two editions, and was a work 
which would for ever hold a high place in science, as a 
truthful record of the succession of all classes of known 
animals from the earliest traces of life to those of the 
youngest Tertiary formations connecting ancient with 
existing nature. 
The address was then presented, as follows :— 
To John Morris, Esq., F.G.S., Professor ot Geology in 
University College, London. 
We, the undersigned, Friends and Cultivators of Geology, 
taking into consideration the degree in which this science has 
been advanced by your long and successful labours, are desirous 
of offering to you a Testimonial of the high estimation in which 
they are held. Always working in the field, and classifying 
public and private collections, you have for many years been 
off, they eat raw with oil and pepper ;” and to this we | among the foremost and most diligent of the Students of 
