i 879 -J National Scientific Appointments . 725 
logy, &c., we may meditate sadly not so much on the 
mere “ stiffness ” of the examination as on its irrelevant 
character. From the remark that “ Candidates for the 
situation of Assistant-Naturalist must pass in Zoology,” 
we may safely infer that the duties of the post will 
mainly consist in the application of a thorough know- 
ledge of the animal kingdom, and consequently that the 
man wanted must be above all things a zoologist. Yet the 
highest number of marks possible in this science is a poor 
500 out of a maximum total of 9100, or not quite 6 per 
cent ! Hence there is absolutely no safeguard that the best 
zoologist will be appointed ! Neither botany nor even phy- 
siology is, by some strange oversight, demanded as essential. 
Hence it is quite conceivable that a man ignorant of these 
two branches of science, and endowed with a mere smat- 
tering of zoology, may still — if well versed in mathematics, 
physics, and in languages — completely swamp his rivals and 
win the prize. On the other hand, a biologist, “ pure 
simple,” a thorough specialist who has concentrated his 
whole attention and devoted his whole time to the study 
of organic life, is almost of necessity excluded. Suppose 
such a one selects as his two obligatory subjects zoology 
and physiology, and as an optional subject botany, and 
that in all three — as well as in elementary mathematics, 
which is inevitable — he gains the maximum number 
possible, or 500 marks in each ; his total number will 
then be only 2000. On the other hand, let a competitor 
take 500 marks in elementary mathematics, 750 in physics, 
250 in zoology, 1000 in pure mathematics, 500 each in the- 
oretical and in applied mechanics, and 400 each in Greek 
and Latin, he achieves a total of 4300, and wins in honours. 
The true biologist is beaten in virtue, we had almost said, 
of his very superiority in his own department, or at least in 
virtue of that very concentration of thought and attention 
without which true greatness in any science is out of the 
question. 
Another peculiar feature of these regulations is that the 
“ optional ” list, if taken in the gross, might possibly lead to 
a greater number of marks than the subjects in the “ obli- 
gatory ” list, even if the whole of them were taken up. To 
us it seems self-contradidtory to admit that a science or a 
branch of knowledge is non-essential by placing it in an op- 
tional list, and yet to reward proficiency in it more highly 
than in the branches recognised as obligatory. 
We may further point out certain omissions : the history 
of science, and especially of organic science, would be 
