482 Culture and Science. 
for them, was now the object, I observed, of a sort of crusade with 
the friends of physical science—a busy host important in itself, im- 
portant because of the gifted leaders who march at its head, import- 
ant from its strong and increasing hold upon public favor. 
“T could not help, I then went on to say, I could not help being 
moved with a desire to plead with the friends of physical science 
on behalf of letters, and in deprecation of the slight which they put 
upon them. But from giving effect to this desire I was at that time 
drawn off by more pressing matters. Ten years have passed, and 
the prospects of any pleader for letters have certainly not mended. 
If the friends of physical science were in the morning sunshine of 
popular favor even then, they stand now in its meridian radiance. 
Sir Josiah Mason founds a college at Birmingham to exclude “ mere 
literary instruction and education ;” and at its opening a brilliant 
and charming debater, Professor Huxley, is brought down to pro- 
nounce their funeral oration. Mr. Bright, in his zeal for the Uni- 
ted States, exhorts young people to drink deep of ‘ Hiawatha;’ 
and the Times, which takes {the gloomiest view possible of the future 
of letters, and thinks that a hundred years hence there will only be 
_a few eccentrics reading letters and almost every one will be study- 
ing the natural sciences—the Times, instead of counselling Mr. 
Bright’s young people rather to drink deep of Homer, is for giving 
them, above all, ‘the works of Darwin and Lyell and Bell and 
Huxley, and for nourishing them upon the voyage of the ‘ Chal- 
lenger? Stranger still, a brilliant man of letters in France, M. 
Renan, assigns the same date of a hundred years hence, as the date 
by which the historical and critical studies, in which his life has 
been passed and his reputation made, will have fallen into neglect, 
and deservedly so fallen. It is the regret of his life, M. Renan 
tells us, that he did not himself originally pursue the natural p7 
ences, in which he might have forestalled Darwin in his discoveries. 
Are Mr. Arnold’s representations respecting the attitude towards 
literature on the part of the advocates of physical science literally 
correct? Are they not exaggerated? Most certainly the curricu- 
lum of Sir Josiah Mason’s Science School does not exclude literary 
instruction, but only such as the sole objective end, and Professor 
Huxley happily anticipated the objection made on the occasion Te- 
ferred to by Mr. Arnold. As I have elsewhere’ shown, m 4 
review of Professor Huxley’s Science and Culture, he fully ro 
nizes the urgency of literary culture, and simply deprecates aP 
1 The Critic (New York). : i 
