classics, as classics, have any peculiar value; but that, through the classics, both the laws of language and the structure of language are studied; and that it is the study of the laws of language which is held best to develop and strengthen the mental faculties?-A. That is narrowing the question this way, that, in place of saying you are taking the classics, you take the laws of language; and no doubt they give that education, as far as I can see. I am reasoning in the dark, because I have not had the opportunity, and have not the right, to speak of these things. I confess all that; but although it be a very important thing to know language perfectly, and to know its laws, or to carry it out, as the most profound scholar would do, by tracing all languages to an original one, or what not,-Max Müller or anybody else, that is not all knowledge. I am not attacking the classics at all. I am only putting in a plea for that other knowledge which belongs to our absolute nature, and, in fact, which language only helps to describe.

Q. What is held, I believe, by the defenders of classical literature is, that the study of language strengthens the general powers of the mind in its application to any other subjects whatever which may come before it, and that in that way the mind is best strengthened as an instrument for acquiring any other kind of knowledge whatever?-A. I see the value of those studies which do lead to such a result; but I think that, at present, society at large is almost ignorant of the like and greater value of the kind of studies which I recommend. . . . I say, that these physical sciences, in my opinion, ought to be brought forward also; and I say it the more boldly, because the learned men who have been so educated in languages do not show any aptness to judge of physical science. In matters of natural knowledge, and all the uses and applications derived from it, I should turn to a man, untaught in other respects, who I knew was acquainted with these subjects, rather than to a classical scholar, as expecting to find within his range that mode of mind, or that management of the mind, which would enable him to speak with understanding. Any word that I have said that has led you to think that I am opposed to classics, I must withdraw. I have no such feeling.

EVIDENCE OF PROFESSOR RICHARD OWEN.

Q. The result of your observation, coming in communication, as you must have done, with various classes, the wealthy, the middle, and the poor,-I suppose is, that there exists a complete deficiency in knowledge of physical science and natural history?-A. The absence of a knowledge of the main end, methods, and application of natural history, has appeared to me to be greater in the higher and more refined classes of the community, than in the middle, or, perhaps, even, as regards details or species, than in the lower classes. If I were to select a particular group, it would be the governing and legislative class; which, from the opportunities I have had of hearing remarks in conversation or debate, appears to

be least aware of the extent of the many departments of naturalhistory science, of the import of its generalizations, and especially of its use in disciplining the mind, irrespective of its immediate object of making known the different kinds of animals, plants, or minerals.

Q. I suppose, when you attribute this state of ignorance to the higher classes, you allude to the absence of instruction, both at the public schools and the Universities, at which these classes, in particular, are educated?-A. More especially at the public schools....

2. I suppose you would consider that is not the best training which omits the physical sciences?-A. Not the completest. Grammar and classics, arithmetic and geometry, may be the most important disciplinary studies. We know the faculties of the mind they are chiefly calculated to educe; but they fail in bringing out those which natural-history science more especially tends to improve. I allude now to the faculty of accurate observation, of the classification of facts, of the co-ordination of classes or groups; the management of topics, for example, in their various orders of importance in the mind, giving to a writer or public speaker improved powers of classifying all kinds of subjects. Natural history is essentially a classifying science. Order and method are the faculties which the elements and principles of the science are best adapted to improve and educe. In every community of two hundred or more youths, there must be some few, the constitution of whose minds is specially adapted to the study of natural history, to the work of observation and classification, who consequently are impelled by innate aptitude to that kind of study, but who are not at present afforded the slightest opportunity of working their minds in that way; so that it may happen that the faculty or gift for natural history, if it be not actually destroyed by exclusive exercise in uncongenial studies, is never educed. What is the result? In all our great natural-history movements, we have looked in vain, since the death of Sir Joseph Banks, for any man having a sufficient standing in the country to fraternize with us, to understand us, to help us in debate or council, in questions most vital to the interests of natural history. It has often occurred to me to ask how such should be the case; and my answer has been, that, in the education of noblemen and gentlemen, the great landed proprietors of England, of those destined to take part in the legislation and government of the country, there has been a complete absence of a systematic imparting of the elements of natural history; no demonstrations of the nature and properties of plants and animals; no indication of the aims and importance of natural history; no training of the faculties, for which it affords the healthiest exercise: consequently they have not been educed. I cannot doubt that this must have been the effect of the present restricted system. There must have been by nature many Sir Joseph Banks's since he died: but they have been born, have grown up, and passed away without

working out their destined purpose; their peculiar talent has never been educed; their attention has never been turned to those studies: but they have been wholly devoted to classics. It must be remembered, that minds of this class are usually very averse to classical studies, and mere exercises of memory and composition : they never take to them; they get through them as well or as ill as they can, doing little or nothing to the purpose; and they fail to achieve that for which they are naturally fitted, from the want of having their special faculties educed. Í consider it a loss to the nation, that, in our great educational establishments for youth, there should be no arrangements for giving them the chance of knowing something of the laws of the living world, and how they are to be studied. ...

Q. Do you think there would be much difficulty in getting teachers, say for the seven or eight principal schools of the country, to undertake that work?-A. I am afraid at the present time that there would be, arising from the general defects of our teaching arrangements, especially the want of systematic teaching of the elements of natural history in schools. We are all of us, as it were, naturalists by accident. It is the perception of that difficulty which has led me, on every occasion when I have been called upon to give evidence on the subject, to urge the giving of elementary instruction in natural history as one of the duties that should be attached to the keeper of each secondary or subordinate department in great national museums of natural history. . . .

2. You say that many of those sciences are in a progressive state?A. Every science we are acquainted with is one of progress.

2. But the principles of some of the sciences are determined; such as those of mathematics, for instance ?-A. The fundamental principles of classification in natural history are as certain.

2. Take this case: fifty years ago, supposing zoology to have been taught in schools, would not the Linnæan system have been adopted?-A. You might teach the main part of that system, in reference to botany, as a disciplinary science at the present day.

2. I was thinking of the study of zoology?—A. In zoology, although of course there has been a great increase in the knowledge of the structure of animals since the time of Linnæus, still the principles laid down in Linnæus's immortal work, Philosophia Botanica," are really those that cannot be deviated from, whether the elements of zoology or botany be imparted.

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2. You do not think there is any objection to the educational use of the physical sciences in consequence of the fluctuating or speculative character of those sciences?-A. I deny the "fluctuating character:" it is not applicable to natural history. The zoological system of Ray is the basis of the system of Linnæus. It forms an essential part of the Linnæan system. There is neither fluctuation nor speculation. The principles of natural history are already as settled and fixed as can be needed for its use as a disci

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plinary science. Modification of details would never affect its value in relation to elementary teaching.

2. The zoological classifications of the ancients were somewhat puerile, were they not, even the classification of Aristotle?-A. No: it is surprising how much of Aristotle's system is really retained; how much is founded on truth, and is the basis of the modern classification.

2. Plato was the first writer on classification, I think: Aristotle is very severe on him, if I remember rightly?-A. I am not sure. But the improvement that Cuvier made on the zoological system of Linnæus was mainly a revival of the Aristotelian principles, because Cuvier was the first modern systematist who had anything like the same amount of knowledge of the structure of animals which that wonderful man, Aristotle, possessed.

2. I suppose that, if we were to wait in order to teach the subject until we entirely escaped the possibility of there being some change in the form and substance of the truths taught, we should have to wait for ever, in all sciences: should we not?-A. We should certainly have to wait for the termination of our existence as a species.

2. Not with respect to arithmetic, for instance ?-A. In Transactions of Societies and Academies of the Natural Sciences, we see annual progress and discoveries in mathematics; the sciences, in regard to the works of nature or of the Author of nature, are more incomplete; and the more we know of them, the more we get impressed with the small amount of knowledge we possess. But that amount, compared with ignorance, is so great, and the principles that we are enabled to educe from the little that we do know are so sure, that, taking them at the present very imperfect, standard, whether in respect to zoology, or botany, or geology, they are as good. for the purposes of elementary instruction and discipline as they will perhaps be ten thousand years hence.

2. There is another point upon which I should like to have your opinion, which is a practical matter entirely, with reference to natural history and philosophy. Has it occurred to you to observe, whether persons in the upper classes of society, and other members of society, are well or ill acquainted with the physiological laws of the human structure?-A. No: it is a knowledge very rarely possessed, as far as my experience goes, very rarely indeed; and I believe that it is chiefly upon that general ignorance that the success of spurious systems of medicine have their dependence. upon the general ignorance of the population that the empiric bases his pretensions, and has an influence for a certain time, till one subsides, and is succeeded by another. . . . In reference to the conclusion to which I have come in regard to the importance of natural history as an element of school instruction, and the time to be given to it in beginning the experiment, I would ask leave to read a passage from the address of a gentleman who fills a very eminent position, that of Local Director of the Geological Survey of

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Ireland, and Lecturer on Geology to the Museum of Irish Industry, Mr. J. B. Jukes; who, in opening the business of the Geological Section of the British Association, over which he presided at Cambridge, made these remarks: "The natural sciences are now considered as worthy of study by those who have a taste for them, both in themselves and as a means of mental training and discipline. In my time, however, no other branches of learning were recognised than classics and mathematics; and I have, with some shame, to confess, that I displayed but a truant disposition with respect to them, and too often hurried from the tutor's lecture-room to the river or field to enable me to add much to the scanty store of knowledge I had brought up with me. Had it not been then for the teaching of Professor Sedgwick in geology, my time would have been altogether wasted." So that it was just the accident, so to speak, of one short course on a branch of natural history, grafted through an old bequest upon the main studies of his University, that led Professor Jukes to his appreciation of the method of study and value of the science which owes so much to his labours. I could also, with your permission, adduce a higher authority on the main point, and that is Baron Cuvier's; who, in the preface to the first edition of his elementary book on Natural History, expresses himself as follows: "The habit, necessarily acquired in the study of natural history,-of mentally classifying a great number of ideas, is one of the advantages of this science which is seldom spoken of, and which, when it shall have been generally introduced into the system of common education, will perhaps become the principal one: it exercises the student in that part of logic which is termed 'method,' as the study of geometry does in that which is called 'syllogism;' because natural history is the science which requires the most precise methods, as geometry is that which demands the most rigorous reasoning. Now, this art of method, when once well acquired, may be applied with infinite advantage to studies the most foreign to natural history. Every discussion which supposes a classification of facts, every research which requires a distribution of matters, is performed after the same manner; and he who has cultivated this science merely for amusement, is surprised at the facilities it affords for disentangling all kinds of affairs. It is not less useful in solitude; sufficiently extensive to satisfy the most powerful mind; sufficiently various and interesting to calm the most agitated soul: it consoles the unhappy, and tends to allay enmity and hatred. Once elevated to the contemplation of the harmony of nature, irresistibly regulated by Providence, how weak and trivial appear those causes which it has been pleased to leave dependent upon the will of man! How astonishing to behold so many fine minds consuming themselves, so uselessly for their own happiness and that of others, in the pursuit of vain combinations, the very traces of which a few years suffice to obliterate! I avow it proudly, these ideas have always been present. my mind, the companions of my labours; and if I have