The Domestication of Science. 471 



THE DOMESTICATION OF SCIENCE. 



A country may contain a considerable amount of scientific 

 knowledge, and may take a high stand for tlie variety and ori- 

 ginality of its investigations, and yet tlie majority of its homes 

 may remain in a comparatively ignorant state. The university 

 may have its learned professors, the schools of medicine may 

 possess able demonstrators and lecturers ; and yet the general 

 condition of society may be feebly affected by the elevating 

 influence of scientific tastes. While this is the case, science 

 cannot be said to be domesticated. It may manifest its power 

 in great national undertakings, in the improvement of particular 

 branches of manufacture, or in arrangements for the public 

 health • but it contributes nothing to the intellectual or moral dig- 

 nity of the homes of the people. Such was the state of England 

 until a very recent date ; and although we have now emerged 

 from the profound barbarism of the Georgian era, we are only 

 at the very commencement and threshold of those beneficent 

 changes by which social relations will be modified and improved. 

 Compared with other countries in Europe, or in America, we 

 may have a large number of persons capable of appreciating 

 scientific reasoning, or engaged in some kind of scientific pur- 

 suit ; but many families in the middle and upper classes are 

 still deplorably ignorant of elementary laws and facts ; and 

 vanity and frivolity too often rule their leisure hours, because 

 they are not sufficiently cultivated to appreciate the delights 

 which any form of study can afford. In ordinary schools the 

 physical sciences are as much neglected as if Nature offered 

 no phenomena to investigate, no principles to discern ; and 

 although so-called " mechanics' " and other institutions are 

 scattered by hundreds over the land, the lecture system has 

 been degraded into a mere amusement for idleness ; and the 

 subjects selected, succeed each other in defiance of any method 

 by which positive knowledge can be increased. On the other 

 hand, we may note with satisfaction the rise of naturalists' field 

 clubs, and other societies by whose agency a large amount of 

 information is pleasantly obtained, and likewise the extensive 

 sale of numerous publications of a more or less elementary 

 kind. There is also the striking fact of the great increase in 

 the number of purchasers of microscopes and telescopes, which 

 are becoming necessary portions of the furniture of every well- 

 ordered home. 



In London and many other great towns, the means are now 

 provided by which systematic study may be carried on at a 

 moderate cost ; and thousands of young men destined for indus- 

 trial pursuits are preparing for their future career by laying a 



