

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER Io, 1870 


SCIENCE AND THE WORKING CLASSES 
HE spread of scientific instruction among the labour- 
ing population is a subject of greater importance 
than a superficial consideration might allow to it. Our 
scientific work is at present done almost entirely by our 
middle class, and mainly by those who have had such an 
education as is afforded by our universities or technical 
schools, or by foreign colleges. Not only do we look in 
this direction almost exclusively for the scientific training 
of the next generation, but also for the greater part of the 
_work actually done in the field. Were statistics obtain- 
able, it would surprise outsiders to learn how large a pro- 
portion of the practical observations in Astronomy, Geo- 
‘logy, or Natural History is accomplished by men, the 
greater number of whose working hours are spent in | 
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towns or in some totally uncongenial occupation, and who 
can only devote a few precious hours stolen from their 
rest, or their brief summer holiday, to those pursuits which 
they have done so much to encourage. 
This ought not so to be. Every one of these urban 
lovers of Nature must have returned from his annual 
retreat in the country with the thought how much more he 
could do for Science, how much greater scope he would 
find for the exercise of a keen eye or a cunning hand, if 
only fortune had so far favoured him that the prime of his 
life could be spent far from the tumult and dust of cities. 
And yet we find that, as a rule, those who do live in the 
country are very slow in making use of their glorious 
opportunities. The class who spend their whole time in 
the midst of every varying phase of the phenomena of 
Nature, have, taken as a whole, contributed little to the 
advancement of Science. How many a rare fossil, whose 
determination would have thrown light on some of 
the occult problems of geology, has been smashed by 
the careless hammer of the quarryman! How many 
-a phenomenon of animal or vegetable life, the recording 
of which might have forestalled the discoveries of a 
Darwin or a Wallace by half a century, has remained 
unnoticed by the field-labourer before whose vacant gaze 
alone it passed ! How many a strange monster or exquisite 
~unknewn form of life, for the possession of which all the 
“museums of Europe would have eagerly competed, has 
been passed with merely an exclamation of awe or wonder 
_ by the untutored fisherman or sailor! The wealth of scien- 
tific knowledge which has in this manner been lost is 
incalculable. Now and thena Hugh Miller rises from the 
ranks to the command of a brigade in Science ; now and 
then a George Stephenson, invincible from the feeling of 
conscious power, fights against difficulties of which those 
in the middle class can have but a faint conception, and 
comes to the fore by the force of inherent genius ; but 
these are but a few solitary landmarks in the midst of the 
dead level of the intellects of our rural population. 
_ The cause of this failure isnot far to seek. It is simply 
want of education,—education, in the first place, of the 
| powers of observation, and in the second place of the 
reasoning faculties, by the use of which alone the obser- 
vations can be utilised and made to subserve the ends of 
Science, Everyone who has had the opportunity must 
VOL. IIT. 
NATURE 
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have been struck with the dormant condition of the 
habist of observation of our agricultural population. An 
adaptation of purpose to end, or a deviation from the 
ordinary course of the laws of Nature, which would at once 
strike the educated eye, does not for a moment arrest 
their attention. Even of occurrences which pass daily 
before their eyes they are profoundly ignorant. We 
were once asked by a very intelligent labourer, whose 
occupation took him abroad frequently by night, if 
we could explain how it was that the moon shifted her 
place among the stars so much in the day time, while 
she remained stationary all night! The first thing to 
do with the working man is to teach him how to make 
use of his eyes. And in this first elementary lesson we 
are afraid our teachers of Science have hitherto Jamentably 
failed. The error of “ popular” scientific lectures, of even- 
ings with working men at mechanics’ institutes, is that 
which is so commonly attributed to clergymen, that of 
speaking over the heads of their audience. It does not 
really:profit your Hodge or Styles to be discoursed to for 
an hour about the wonders of astronomy, the uninterrupted 
chain of organic beings from the Amoeba to the Elephant, 
or the grandeur of the uniformitarian theory of geology. 
Take him out on a starry night and let him look through 
a telescope, and see for himself that Saturn isa round orb 
suspended in the air. with its marvellous rings and its at- 
tendant satellites ; take him where with his own hands he 
may exhume a shark’s tooth from a chalk-pit, and show 
him how this absolutely proves that the spot on which he 
stands was once fathoms deep beneath the ocean ; put a 
flower in his hand, and point out the structure and the 
function of every organ, and you will at least have made 
a beginning. You cannot be too simple or practical, 
Treated in this way, we believe that every science-teacher 
who has tried the experiment will testify to the eagerness 
of the working man to increase his store of knowledge. 
In the case of those classes of the labouring population 
who live in towns, the only substitute is to take them to 
the Museums or Collections of Natural History, which are 
the best representatives of Nature herself. For our country 
gentlemen and tradesmen, the Naturalists’ Field Clubs, 
which now flourish in so many counties, are doing a good 
work : something of a similar kind is wanted for the less 
educated class of the population. 
But when the eye has been trained to observe, the whole 
work of education has by no means been accomplished. 
It is the portion of the work on which there is most need 
to insist at the present time, because it has hitherto been 
almost entirely neglected. The system pursued till recently 
in our Universities and public schools was based on a high 
cultivation of the reasoning faculties, to the almost entire 
exclusion of any recognition of the perceptive powers. 
There may be a danger now of running into the other 
extreme, and already we hear some zealous devotees 
of Natural Science exclaim against book knowledge, as 
if it were opposed to a practical scientific training. There 
cannot be a greater mistake. Unless a man thinks to 
live the life of a recluse, and to profit nothing by the 
labours of others in the same field, the greater part of his 
knowledge must always be derived from books. What we 
insist on is that the learner must be taught /s¢ to use 
his own eyes, before he has recourse to the experience 
of others. No man can be considered to be highly edu- 
Cc 
