KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



235 



burnt in bottles of oxygen," so humorously 

 described by the adventurer of Mont Blanc. 

 Or if any other image be presented to the 

 mind, at the mention of natural history, it is 

 that of some isolated enthusiast, being viewed 

 with a degree of suspicion by some, with a 

 few grains of pity by others, but with no 

 small amount of contempt by all ; whether 

 he be an entomologist chasing a butterfly 

 through brake and briar, a botanist search- 

 ing in a ditch for common weeds, or a geologist 

 breaking stones in a quarry. 



Yet, let us hope that such imaginations are 

 fast becoming obsolete ; for among the many 

 departments of human knowledge, together 

 with the advantages resulting from their 

 culture, which have been illustrated and 

 developed during the last half-century, few, 

 if any, display a more remarkable and im- 

 portant progress than physiology, whether 

 animal, vegetable, or material. And with 

 this advance among the professed students of 

 science, there has also been spread among the 

 community at large a considerable apprecia- 

 tion of the utility and absorbing interest of 

 such pursuits, though very far from what could 

 be desired, or, indeed, from what might really 

 be effected, were a better system of education 

 more generally diffused. All real and perma- 

 nent improvement, however, must be 

 gradual. Men who have never been taught 

 in youth, when the faculties were ripening, 

 and the thoughts untrammeled by the sterner 

 realities of life, cannot be expected, unless in 

 exceptional cases, to devote attention to things 

 of the kind in after years, when business, 

 with its excitements and all-engrossing cares, 

 has eaten away, like a canker- worm, all that 

 was fresh and spirit-stirring in their imagi- 

 nations, and ennobling in their hearts. 



" Until lately," said the Rev.W.S. Symonds, 

 at the meeting of the Cotteswold, Wool- 

 hope and Malvern Naturalists 1 Field Clubs, 

 June 7, 1853, "the value of natural history 

 as a part of education has never been recog- 

 nised in England ; and I am sure that there 

 are many present who will acknowledge with 

 myself, that we closed our educational career 

 without ever once having our attention 

 drawn to those studies which are, after all, 

 the noblest and the most intellectual. . . . 

 Far be it from me to disparage the value of 

 classical and mathematical literature ; it is the 

 one-sided system which is to be lamented, and 

 the absurdity of confining the acquisition of 

 University honors to those subjects alone. 



" There is still, amongst a certain class of 

 persons unacquainted with the facts of 

 science, much popular fear lest Rome branches 

 of natural history may tend to scepticism. 

 That prejudice is disappearing, as men 

 begin to grapple with subjects that at first 

 were of necessity visionary and dim." 



Jt is something to have arrived so far, 



that there is gradually becoming diffused an 

 impression of the utility of such pursuits ; 

 for, perhaps, after all that may be said of 

 their elevating and ennobling character, this 

 would fail to draw so much attention as the 

 circumstance of direct personal interest, — 

 the utile, in our prosaic country, ever taking 

 precedence of the dulce, — if not in theory, 

 yet most certainly in practice. 



Happily, enough is known to most men 

 on this point, to spare a lengthened detail of 

 the real good arising from a knowledge of 

 the natural sciences. Men, we hope, have 

 learned not to look for coal in places where 

 the most elementary knowledge of geology 

 would convince them it could by no possi- 

 bility be found, and are beginning to see that 

 the practice mentioned in the address we have 

 just quoted, of sinking marl pits on marl soils, 

 to manure marl land, is "very analogous to 

 giving a schoolboy bread to his bread or 

 cheese to his cheese." So when *ve read of a 

 naturalist who has been able, by his re- 

 searches on the olive-fly, so far to check the 

 ravages of that insect, that the quantity of 

 oil produced in the south of France was 

 increased in value, some four or five years 

 since, to the average annual amount of 

 £240,000, we cannot but hail him as a bene- 

 factor to mankind. 



It is obvious that, for the successful 

 following out of these pursuits, a most im- 

 portant element is observation ; and this, an 

 observation not to be made hastily, or by a 

 few individuals only, but a regular and perse- 

 vering system of inquiry carried on simulta- 

 neously in different districts. Much as this is 

 called for in geology, it is equally necessary 

 in those sciences that treat of animal life ; 

 and, if possible, still more in botany. But in 

 no case will these investigations contribute to 

 the desired end, if those who undertake them 

 be not fitted for the task by accurate know- 

 ledge and unflinching diligence. 



A geologist, ignorant of natural history, is 

 constantly liable to errors in organic remains ; 

 and a man that would call himself a botanist, 

 who has not an extensive and correct 

 knowledge of species, deserves no better 

 name than that of a pretender to science. 

 Certainly, this accurate knowledge of species, 

 requiring, as it does, little more than obser- 

 vation and comparison of minute physical 

 differences, with a fair share of judgment in 

 discrimination, is not of itself sufficient ; but 

 it is incontestable that all those leaders in 

 science who have put forth broad general 

 views, have formed their generalisations on 

 the basis of sound specific knowledge, and 

 they are ever found insisting on its im- 

 portance. 



Botanical geography, including the inte- 

 resting details of the dependence of plants on 

 climate and other circumstances, rests wholly 



