162 
NATURE 
| Dec. 29, 1870 

children to observe facts, and lead them gradually from 
simple facts to the more obvious and easily understood 
laws of Science. 
what are called Real Schule, and the system has been 
introduced into England under the name of Object 
lessons. Such teaching might be preparatory to taking 
up any one branch of Science, such as Chemistry, Experi- 
mental Physics, Botany, or the elements of Human 
Physiology. 
tion waited on the Vice-President of the Council for the 
purpose of presenting a memorial on scientific teaching in 
elementary schools. Their reasons for urging this subject, 
they say, are three : “Firstly,” the memorial says, “we 
conceive such teaching to be one of the best instruments of 
education in the sense of intellectual discipline,and in many 
respects better calculated to awaken intellectual activity | 
than other studies ; secondly, we think that a knowledge 
of the elements of Natural Science has a high value as in- 
formation; and thirdly, we are of opinion that scientific 
training and teaching in the elementary schools will afford 
the best possible preparation for that technical education 
of the working classes, which has become indispensably 
necessary to the industrial progress of the country.” 
The subjects they propose to be taught are elementary 
Physical Geography, elementary Physics and Chemistry, 
elementary Botany, and elementary Human Physiology. 
They think that by such an education the children of 
“the poor and necessitous” might be prepared to take 
advantage of the scholarships and exhibitions which are 
now only open to the children of the well-to-do classes 
of society. E. LANKESTER 

THE LEARNED SOCIETIES AND THE PRE- 
SENT CONDITION OF SCIENCE AND 
LEARNING 
“amg appointment of the Royal Commission on the 
present condition of Science will naturally turn the 
attention of many minds to the subject, and its discussion 
will certainly elicit many suggestions and schemes for 
the better culture of knowledge. The question is so 
large, so important, and so difficult, that the freest 
possible discussion will be necessary for its satisfactory 
solution. ; 
At present we wish to direct attention to the question 
as to how we may obtain from the Learned Societies of | 
the United Kingdom the greatest possible aid in the im- 
provement of natural knowledge. The number of these 
societies is now large. Some of the provincial societies 
can claim an honourable place even when compared with 
the associations which are not confined to any one locality 
in their choice of members. Members of the Literary 
and Philosophical Society of Manchester, it should be 
remembered, were the first who were favoured with 
Dalton’s Atomic Theory. Of what we may call the national 
societies, the number is increasing yearly, greatly to the 
detriment of real progress. Membership in these societies 
is coveted because it is supposed to indicate the possession 
of certain acquirements, it being thought, not unnaturally, 
that the members have won their spurs as investigators 
Such classes are formed in Germany, in | 

and interpreters of Science. Nor can we conceive of any 
better tests than those at present applied to candidates. 
Examinations are clearly impossible in this case, even if 
one were fully confident of the certainty of that method for 
detecting ability. It is evident that, on the whole, the 
regulations now enforced have been successful in their 
object, and that membership of a British Learned Society 
is generally not only a coveted distinction, but one 
| deservedly prizeable. 
We are glad to find that this subject has again been 
taken up by the British Association for the Advancement | 
of Science. A few days ago a deputation of this Associa- | 
Year by year these societies gather up the result of 
patient investigations, of long and careful research. Re- 
cording new facts, illustrating old truths, dissecting error, 
they pursue a course of steady consistent usefulness. 
Every one who has had to work up some special topic, 
must have a feeling of gratitude for the aid he has re- 
ceived from their publications. The societies are doing 
a good share of honest work, and doing it well. Their 
ranks include the most distinguished and the most ardent 
investigators in each branch of learning. Still we need 
not attempt to disguise the fact that they do not con- 
tribute so largely to the advancement of knowledge as 
it is desirable they should do. They have forgotten, or 
never known, that unity gives strength. They have neg- 
lected the great fact, daily becoming more apparent, of 
the unity of knowledge. 
“ The divisions which we establish between the Sciences 
are, though not arbitrary, essentially artificial. The sub- 
ject of our researches is one: we divide it for our conye- 
nience, in order to deal the more easily with its difficulties. 
But it sometimes happens—and especially with the most 
important doctrines of each Science—that we need what 
we cannot obtain under the present isolation of the 
Sciences,—a combination of several special points of view ; 
and for want of this, very important problems wait for 
their solution much longer than they otherwise need do. 
To go back into the past for an example: Descartes’s 
grand conception with regard to analytical geometry is a 
discovery which has changed the whole aspect of mathe- 
matical science, and yielded the germ of all future pro- 
gress ; and it issued from the union of two Sciences which 
had always before been separately regarded and pursued.” 
(Comte.) 
Science suffers not only from the causes indicated in 
the preceding extract, but also from the dispersion of 
material in different receptacles, all of which are not 
accessible to the student. If the number of existing learned 
bodies be taken into consideration, and also their con- 
| flicting claims, it will be obvious that none except rich men 
can possess all the aid which they can give to the investi- 
gator. A paper upon the characteristics of one of our Eng- 
lish dialects might appropriately be read before the Royal 
Society, the Society of Antiquaries, the Philological 
Society, the Archeological Institute, the Archzeological 
Association, the Royal Society of Literature, the Ethno- 
logical Society, the Anthropological Society, and a score 
or more of the provincial societies. We find a valuable 
monograph on the Lancashire dialect in the Proceedings 
ofthe Philological Society, and another inthe Transactions 
of the Literary and Philosophical of Liverpool, but for 
information on the eastern variety of that dialect, we must 
go to the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire. 
The Cheshire glossary must be sought in the Archzeologia, 
the Cumbrian in the Royal Society of Literature. 
“ 
