14 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
THE STUDY OE NATURAL HISTORY. 
A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE R.A. INSTITUTION, WOOLWICH, OCT. 3, 1871, 
BY 
CANON KINGSLEY. 
Major-G-enerae F. M. Eardley-Wilhot ik the Chair. 
Gentlemen :—When I accepted the honour of lecturing here, I took 
for granted that so select an audience would expect from me not 
mere amusement, hut somewhat of instruction; or if that be too 
ambitious a word for me to use, at least some fresh hint—if I were able 
to give you one—as to how they should fulfil the ideal of military men 
in such an age as this. 
To touch on military matters, even had I been conversant with 
them, seemed to me an impertinence. I am bound to take for granted 
that every man knows his own business best, and I incline more and 
more to the opinion that military men should be left to work out the 
problems of their art for themselves, without the advice or criticism 
of civilians. But I hold—and I am sure that you will agree with me— 
that if the soldier is to be thus trusted by the nation, and left to himself 
to do his own work his own way, he must be educated in all practical 
matters as highly as the average of educated civilians. He must know 
all that they know, and his own art beside. Just as a clergyman, being 
a man plus a priest, is bound to be a man, and a good man, over and 
above his priesthood, so is the soldier bound to be a civilian, and a 
highly educated civilian, plus his soldierly qualities and acquirements. 
It seemed to me, therefore, that I might, without impertinence, ask you 
to consider a branch of knowledge which is becoming yearly more and 
more important in the eyes of well-educated civilians—of which, there¬ 
fore, the soldier ought at least to know something, in order to put him 
on a par with the general intelligence of the nation. I do not say that 
he is to devote much time to it, or to follow it up into specialities, but 
that he ought to be well grounded in its principles and methods; that 
he ought to be aware of its importance and its usefulness; that so, if 
he comes into contact—as he will more and more—with scientific men, 
he may understand them, respect them, befriend them, and be befriended 
by them in turn; and how desirable this last result is, I shall tell you 
hereafter. 
There are those, I doubt not, among my audience who do not need 
the advice which I shall presume to give to-night; who belong to that 
fast increasing class among officers of whom I have oiten said—and I 
