402 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
glad to see that lately Mr. Yarnell has become one. We 
hail his advent with pleasure, and congratulate the pupils on 
obtaining this additional aid to their studies; but, at the 
same time, we sincerely hope it is but the precursor of a more 
extended work on his division of science, namely, anatomy; 
one to which he is capable of doing full justice. We are 
advocates for a division of labour, believing that thereby in 
science, as in all other manifestations of human activity, 
we arrive at discoveries and results which escape the mental 
vision of the man Tvho is eager to embrace all sides of the 
horizon at once. Mr. VarnelPs writings are not unknown 
to our readers, and their practical usefulness is duly appre¬ 
ciated by them. 
Reverting to our subject, we ask would it not be as well 
if to others were given an opportunity of judging? We 
are told, “ Knowledge should not be hidden. Nor can a 
man possess the gift of intellect without diffusing it around 
him. Nature herself is impressed with this law. Every¬ 
where in nature stagnation is death; whatever stagnates 
dies. Like the water from heaven, when it falls upon the 
earth it fertilises it, and thence runs into a rill, leaping from 
stone to stone, laughing in the sunshine, rippling in the 
mountain breeze, and leaving behind it as it runs a line of 
verdure, beauty, and fertility. Look at the self-same stream 
if it runs into a hollow; if, instead of imparting its quicken¬ 
ing virtue to all around it, it becomes dammed up and stag¬ 
nant, what becomes of it ? Its brilliant living lustre fades 
away, and so soon as it loses its power of motion a thick, 
green film forms over its silvery surface, and denies that it 
shall drink in the sunshine of heaven.” 
Again, will not the act of giving publicity to these essays 
awaken an emulative spirit among the rising members of the 
profession, which, in after years, will be attended with a cor¬ 
responding beneficial influence; like the scratch made in the 
bark of the sapling, which time both deepens and widens ? 
We are aware it may be disparagingly said that they are 
merely the attempts of students, full of book-learning and quo¬ 
tations from all sources. We do not, however, happen to be 
of the number of those who contemn the efforts of the aspi¬ 
rant to fame, remembering the adage, “ the boy is oft father 
