Oct. 13, 1870] 
NATURE 
47t 
In connection with the above brief statement I offer 
the following remarks :— 
1. The ranges of studies in the two colleges, the Aca- 
demic and Scientific, are so diverse in character, that the 
interests of the students and of education are better sub- 
served by two distinct faculties working separately, than 
by one single combined faculty. There is not in the Yale 
scheme that multiplicity of optionals before the students 
after they have entered the University, which incon- 
veniently subdivides classes, offers inducements to in- 
‘dolence, and tends to break down thorough discipline 
and study ; for, in the act of entering, the student decides 
as to the range of his optionals ; and if afterwards not 
satisfied (which would seldom be the case) he can join 
the other college. 
2. It might be supposed that the scheme would require 
an unnecessary duplication of professors. But this is not 
soat Yale. In the Academic College there are already 
fcur instructors in Greck, four in Latin, five in mathe- 
matics, physics, and astronomy ; and the professors of 
rhetoric, history, moral and intellectual philosophy, &c., 
are more than well occupied with their academic labours. 
The scientific students, if embraced in the Academic 
College, would actually require as many additional in- 
structors as are needed under the existing system of the 
University. 
3. In some scientific departments in the Academic 
College (zoology and botany, for example), in which the 
instruction occupies but asmall part of the college course, | 
there is no objection to employing the services of some 
of the scientific faculty, if this is feasible ; and, where 
possible, the academic faculty may serve the Scientific 
College. Moreover, while all lecture-rooms had better 
be separate, the more costly kinds of apparatus may 
well be used in common, in order to avoid needless 
expenditure. 
4. It may be added that many scientific students com- 
mence their training as scholars by first graduating in the 
Academic College. For the higher training in science, 
such a preparatory course in the classics is believed to 
be eminently desirable. They then enter an advanced 
class in some one of the departments in the Scientific 
College, and take the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy, 
or of Civil Engineer ; or by special proficiency, after two 
years of study, that of Doctor of Philosophy. The 
Scientific College also admits of partial courses of study 
which do not lead to any degree. 
5. The modification in American colleges which is 
demanded by the vast development of the sciences of 
nature within the past century—the era of origination for 
many of them—and also by the contemporary progress of 
linguistic and other sciences, is accomplished by tke 
Yale scheme through a method which does not sacrifice, 
in any degree, classical education, and which at the same 
time combines thorough literary culture with the widest 
range and highest development of scientific education. 
The Classical College stands beside the Scientific, open 
to all who desire to commence with a classical basis; and 
the Scientific College offers a thorough and liberal edu- 
cation for all who would pursue a more distinctively 
scientific course. 
6. The Yale scheme contemplates no important change 
in the Classical or Academic College except in the eleva 
tion of the department of modern languages and litera- 
ture ; and its ideal with regard to modern languages 
cannot be wholly realised until a knowledge of French 
and German is given (like that of Latin and Greek) in 
preparatory schools, and required for admission to the 
college. 
7. The great change that has taken place at Yale is in 
the introduction of its School of Science. This school is 
not the result of any preconcerted plan on the part of the 
University. It is a gradual growth of the past twenty 
years, urged on by the demand in the land for scientific 
knowledge among lovers of science, those seeking to be- 
come its teachers, and others interested in its practical 
departments ; and it has been carried forward to its pre- 
sent organisation mainly through the labours and judg- 
ment of the scientific men who have been slowly gathered 
into its facully. More than two-thirds of its endowments 
are due to private munificence, and the remainder to the 
National Agricultural and Mechanical Fund. 
WALLACE ON NATURAL SELECTION 
Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection. A 
Series of Essays. By Alfred Russel Wallace. (London: 
Macmillan and Co., 1870.) 
ey the discussions of the French Academy, to which 
we referred in a recent number, M. Elie de Beaumont 
ventured to describe Mr. Darwin’s theory as La Sctence 
Mousseuse. The phrase is a good one, and expresses very 
happily the kind of work for which some of the speakers 
in that debate are distinguished. But although we too 
in England are not unacquainted with this kind of popular 
science, scientific works do from time to time appear 
which are popular without being frothy, and to this class 
the present book belongs. While strictly accurate in 
matter, it is easy in style, and is so free from technical 
language, that it may be understood by educated men who 
are not professed naturalists ; so that we hope it will be 
read by a large number of those to whom Mr. Wallace’s 
delightful volumes have made the Malay Archipelago 
familiar. 
The arrangement of the essays (most of which have 
been published separately) does not, peraaps, bring out 
their mutual connection so well as might be, and there is 
no attempt to blend them into a continuous series. Four 
main subjects are discussed, and each has its own peculiar 
interest. 
The first and second chapters are reprinted as originally 
written in the East Indies, and, with the eighth, form Mr. 
Wallace’s contribution to the theory of natural selection 
in general. It is remarkable that the same pregnant 
idea which Mr. Darwin has for ever united with his name 
should have occurred independently to another English 
naturalist on the other side of the globe. The public 
opinion of the scientific world will no doubt assign Mr, 
Wallace the full credit which the preface to this volume 
so modestly claims ; and the highest respect is due to his 
varied and fruitful labours in both hemispheres ; but a 
warmer feeling than respect will be paid to the spirit by 
which the following passage was prompted :—“I have felt all 
my life, and I still feel, the most sincere satisfaction that 
Mr. Darwin had been at work long before me, and 
that it was not left for me to attempt to write ‘The 
