84 EDUCATION OF A MAN OF SCIENCE 



Yet this I experienced in an examination of 

 medical students. Describing an object placed 

 before him is excellent training in observation for a 

 boy. And the capacity of describing an object 

 by memory should also be cultivated. Remember 

 what Dr. Noel says in Stevenson's story of the 

 Saratoga Trunk, and how we may fail in a question 

 of life and death because we cannot descriqe the 

 mysterious stranger who dogs our footsteps. 



To return for a moment to the description of an 

 object. It not only practises the power of observa- 

 tion, but is also excellent exercise in writing English, 

 far better as it seems to me than the usual essay on 

 the usual subjects. In describing a given object 

 the pupil has not to seek for material — it is there 

 before him. He need not recall his feehtxgs during 

 a country walk, or the way he spent his time in the 

 Christmas holidays, or vainly search for facts on 

 the character of Oliver Cromwell. He can concen- 

 trate on arrangement, on directness and clearness. 

 My experience of the essays set to candidates in the 

 Natural Science Tripos was most depressing. A 

 man who could write a good plain answer to an 

 ordinary examination question becomes ornate 

 and tiresome when he is told to write an essay. 

 Such candidates have clearly never heard the 

 admirable statement by Canon Ainger of the style 

 expected in writers in the Dictionary of Natural 

 Biography, "No flowers by request." Nor can 

 they have known that other bit of advice, "You have 

 no idea what strength it gives to your style to 

 leave out every other word." I have heard sug- 

 gested another method of checking the natural 



