i86 



NA TURE 



[August 27, 1896 



the education of the weahhy classes of the community, 

 that the landed and professional classes have been 

 educated apart from the commercial and industrial 

 classes, to the very great injury of both." 



This is the reason that the true condition of things has 

 not been appreciated long ago. It is not understood, 

 and therefore it is not believed. Our political leaders, 

 tlie permanent chiefs of the various public departments, 

 have not the slightest idea what all this fuss is about, 

 because their education has been entirely apart from 

 those regions of thought and work in which in the 

 future the peaceful battles of the world will be fought 

 and won ; if not by us, then by others, for fighting there 

 must be. 



No better argument could be found for the establish- 

 ment of a ministry and council of science than was 

 afforded by two speeches delivered some little time ago 

 by the Uuke of Devonshire on matters connected with 

 scientific education, and of which condensed reports were 

 given in NATURE at the time. The Duke candidly con- 

 fessed at Birmingham that he was not placed at the head 

 of the educational and scientific affairs of the country on 

 account of any special knowledge of the subjects, for 

 " his knowledge of science and art could be compressed 

 into two nutshells." It is not our desire to utter one 

 word against the Duke of Devonshire for his candour ; 

 he has shown that he is interested in technical education, 

 and has on more than one occasion assisted the w-ork of 

 science. But what we do criticise is the political system 

 which does not consider it necessary that the educational 

 and scientific welfare of the country should be the busi- 

 ness of those who are able to appreciate the work done, 

 to see the necessity of reforms, and to know the directions 

 in which developments should take place. In almost 

 every other country the State or Government has official 

 men of science among its servants, and also constantly 

 ask the advice and assistance of their academies and 

 learned societies, when questions of technical and 

 scientific interest are being discussed ; but here no such 

 use is made, either of the societies as a whole or of the 

 men who constitute them. 



CARL VOGT. 

 La Vic dUin Hoiniiie : Carl Vogt. By William \'ogt. 

 4to vol. of 264 pages, with two portraits by Otto 

 Vautier. (Schleicher Brothers, f.r-Reinwald. Paris, 

 1896.) 



A PHILOSOPHER he was— there is no doubt about 

 that ; but none of the quiet sort who "leave con- 

 troversy to the little world below them " : he was one of 

 the fighting portion, and while none have known him to 

 step out of his path to avoid a skirmish, he has often gone 

 far from his track for the mere pleasure of picking up 

 some battle. To him life was movement, and a true 

 account of his years should include more than the history 

 of his scientific work. The latter has been reviewed in 

 Nature for May 30, 1S95, and a very full account thereof 

 has been also given by his pupil and friend, Emile Yung, 

 in Revue Scientifigue, dated June 22, 1895. M. William 

 Vogt, his son, now proceeds to tell us the essentials of 

 NO. 1400, VOL. 54] 



his life ; and although the large book before us deals but 

 slightly with the scientific features of the lamented 

 naturalist, still scientific readers will find much in it 

 to interest them, in the way of anecdotes concerning 

 Vogt's relations with men of his time, and letters of the 

 latter. 



Carl Vogt was born on July 5, 181 7, at Giessen, in 

 Germany, the eldest of nine children. Celtic blood was 

 predominant in his veins, not Germanic, and much in his 

 character and wit was distinctively Celtic. The son of a 

 distinguished physician and professor, Carl had an un- 

 eventful youth. To put it short, he was lazy, and Gall 

 could certainly not locate the "bump of respect" orof sub- 

 missiveness on that head. His father was assured that 

 the masters allowed him to pass from class to class, each 

 year, only to get rid of this turbulent and undisciplined 

 pupil ; and it is well known that the aforesaid " bump " 

 never grew. After the school-days, Carl was sent to the 

 medical faculty, where he did more fighting and duelling 

 than reading or study, and entered Liebig's laboratory. 

 He was engaged in an investigation of the amniotic 

 liquid (published in MuUer's Arc/iiv, 1837), when an 

 event occurred which stands at the basis of all Vogt's 

 poHtical troubles. A law student, implicated in the Marburg 

 plot, and a republican, begged of Vogt to help and con- 

 ceal him, as the police were in search of him. ^ ogt — a 

 nephew of the three republican brothers Follenius — 

 complied immediately, and hid his fellow-student in his 

 own room, although the next day it was officially an- 

 nounced that five years' imprisonment in a fortress was 

 the penalty for such offence. A week elapsed, quietly, 

 when one day, Liebig took Vogt aside. Liebig knew the 

 facts, and had heard that the police also were informed ; 

 it was high time for Vogt to run. At once \'ogt went 

 home, and the same evening the refugee and himself left, 

 in opposite directions, early enough to avoid being cap- 

 tured. Carl Vogt fled to an uncle of his, near Darm- 

 stadt, and spent a few weeks there, disguised by his 

 uncle — an inspector of forests — as a forest official, and in 

 this character taking part in the chases of the very Gross- 

 Hcrzog himself, whose police were after Vogt. Some 

 weeks later, he managed to cross the Rhine, and, with 

 the help of friends, to put his feet on the French 

 soil ; he was then out of trouble. His father desired him 

 to pursue his medical studies, and in 1839 he graduated 

 in Bern inaxiina cum laudc. But little he cared about 

 medical art. Valentin, the physiologist and anatomist, 

 had been interested in the young student, and wished to 

 bring him over to zoology and physiology. Vogt took 

 very kindly to the hints, and to Valentin's lessons, and 

 undertook most willingly to investigate the nervous system 

 of some South American reptiles collected by Humboldt. 

 Hence two papers (" Neurologic von Python tigris " and 

 " Neurologie der Reptilien," 1839-40) which are the first 

 anatomical work of Carl Vogt, the last bemg more than 

 fifty years younger. At this period, circumstances — too 

 long to relate — put Vogt, and Edouard Desor his friend, 

 in contact with Louis Agassiz, and they decided of \'ogt's 

 scientific future : he was bound to become a naturalist. 

 Vogt set to work in most determined manner at 

 Agassiz's " Poissons d'Eau douce " and at the " Embry- 

 ologie des Salmones," publishing in the meantime his 



