Abstract
THIS unpretending little book affords an additional piece of evidence, if more were needed, that science in some form or other is making its way into our schools. A few years ago it was well remarked by one who had given no small attention to the matter, that the relations of the universities and public schools, as regarded science, formed a “vicious circle”—on the one hand the public schools demurred to its encouragement because it did not “pay” their pupils when they reached the university, and on the other the universities hesitated about rewarding scientific studies because they were pursued by intellects comparatively inferior to those which were devoted to the older branches of learning. This state of things clearly admitted of a remedy; either great power of itself could make the first step; but it was certainly the duty of the universities to take the lead in moving. It must depend on them, and on them alone, to alter and improve the whole higher education of our countrymen, for the curriculum of any public school is almost exclusively prepared with reference to the requirements of the universities and the rewards for proficiency that they offer.* They have but to declare that their emoluments and privileges are accessible to excellence in every branch of human knowledge, instead of confining these encouragements to some very few alone, and leave the public schools to respond to the call. With skilful gardeners these nurseries will speedily grow the plants required; the germs are already there, and under the sunny smiles of pedagogic favour and the golden rain of prizes, vigorous saplings will be transplanted to the Groves of Academe, there to hold their heads as high as their rivals from the primæval forests of classics and mathematics, and (may we say?) to be finally of greater utility.
Birds of Marlborough, being a Contribution to the Ornithology of the District.
By Everard F. im Thurn. (12mo. pp. 117. Marlborough and London, 1870.)
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Birds of Marlborough, being a Contribution to the Ornithology of the District. Nature 2, 208 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/002208a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/002208a0