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investigation, or curiosity as to how the present natural conditions have 
been brought about, have taken up seriously and enthusiastically its 
study, but rather, considering all things, how few there are who have 
done so. Once the true course has been opened out before our eyes, 
and the true philosophical spirit tasted and appreciated, the charm and 
interest are unequalled. 
Probably, the fact that average men and women look upon us as a 
body of somewhat harmless lunatics, has had something to do with the 
slow* progress that entomology, in company with other branches of 
science, has until recently made. That any sane man or woman should 
be interested and, as the uninitiated would say, should “ waste his or 
her time ” over bugs and insects, appears unaccountably strange to 
many. The fact that when much-read writers endeavour to portray an 
entomologist, they generally idealise him as being widely different 
from other men, totally immersed in his subject, and stupid to the 
highest degree in all matters else, has probably had much to do with 
the popular fallacy. On the other hand, the stupid ignorance which 
so-called educated men display; the absurd blunders and errors into 
which they fall; the ridiculous errors which high-class papers and 
magazines allow to pass unchallenged in their pages ; all these lead 
scientific men to wonder oft-times whether such people are not really 
deficient of a certain section of their brains. These frequent errors, 
too, appear to be so utterly beneath contempt, that the well-informed 
man allows them to pass unnoticed, knowing that to correct them he 
must explain to adults as he would to little children. The task appears 
so Herculean that he desists from the attempt. 
Whatever depths of general ignorance still exist in the pojmlar mind 
on matters'entomological, it must be owned, however, that the interest 
recently exhibited in the more philosophical side of the study, together 
with the general spread of education and intelligent culture, have left 
their mark, and we are glad to find that many individuals do now-a- 
days express their surprise at the prevailing ignorance about natural 
history matters. Some such have suggested that, in its simple forms, 
natural history should be made a compulsory subject of instruction in 
the State schools. I suppose there is no Oxford or Cambridge graduate, 
a master in one of our Public schools, who corrects a boy for telling him 
that a whale is not a fish; nor perhaps is there a certificated teacher in 
our State schools, who would be guilty of the same or a similar 
error. With regard to that still great army of “ private adventure ” 
schools, however, on which Max O'Kell so glowingly descants, those 
“ seminaries for the sons and daughters of gentlemen,” which compare 
so unfavourably in their results with their compeers, can as much be 
said ? As a teacher, however, it is my most decided opinion that the 
making of such a subject as natural history compulsory in our State 
schools would be ridiculous in the extreme. Our system of primary 
education, compared with what intelligence and a little insight might 
make it, is now (owing to the superfluity of subjects which have been 
rendered compulsory if the maximum Government grant is to be earned) 
largely a huge sham. Interest a lad in pond life, by showing him the 
marvellous wonders, the thousands of tiiry inhabitants that a drop of 
such water contains; show him the beauties of a butterfly, its marvel¬ 
lous tongue, its wonderful eyes ; and if he has any taste in this direction, 
depend upon it the taste will soon exhibit itself. 
