340 Notes and Comments. 
formation can be obtained, and it is no exaggeration to say that 
with the death.of every old man there and in many other places. 
there goes, and goes for ever, knowledge, the disappearance: 
of which the scholars of the future will regret as the scholars. 
of the past regretted such an event as the sere ie of the: 
library of Alexandria. 
THE NEED FOR ETHNOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH. 
There is no other science which is in quite the same position. 
The nervous system of an animal, the metabolism of a plant, 
the condition of the South Pole, for instance, will a hundred, 
or even a thousand, years hence be essentially what they are: 
to-day, but long before the shorter of those times has passed,. 
most, if not all, of the lower cultures now found on different 
parts of the earth will have wholly disappeared, or have suffered. 
such change that little will be learnt from them. Fortunately 
the need for ethnographical research is now forcing itself on 
the attention of those who have to deal with savage or bar- 
barous people. Statesmen have begun to recognise the 
practical importance of knowledge of the institutions of those 
they have to govern, and missionary societies are beginning 
to see, what every wise missionary has long known, that it is 
necessary to understand the ideas and customs of those whose 
lives they are trying to reform. Still, we must not be content 
with these more or less official movements. There is ample 
scope, indeed urgent need, for individual effort and for non- 
official enterprise. It is not all who can go into the field and 
do the needed work themselves, but there are none who cannot 
in some way help to promote ethnographical research. We 
have before us one of those critical occasions which must be 
seized at once if they are to be seized at all; the occasion of a 
need which to future generations will seem to have been so 
obvious that its neglect will be held an enduring reproach to the 
science of our time.’ 
TEACHERS AND EDUCATION. 
In his address to the Educational Science Section, the Rt. 
Kev. J. Ek. C. Welldon, himself once a schoolmaster, stated :— 
‘ It happened to me at one time to examine for a special purpose 
all the lives recorded in the “ Dictionary of National Bio- 
graphy’; and the number of the persons who were there stated 
to have been more or less constantly engaged in tuition was 
not less surprising than pleasing to an old schoolmaster. Apart 
from such persons as were born, in the proverbial phrase, with 
a golden spoon in their mouths, it is safe, I think, to assert that 
one out of every three or four eminent Englishmen has at some 
time or other been a teacher. Nor is this the truth in England 
er in Great Britain alone; it is true everywhere. Not to 
Naturalist, 
