Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/233
"COMMON THINGS."
Even without going from our own neighbourhood, or withdrawing from spots with which we have been long intimate, how much may be learnt in addition to what we yet know. It is not always the animals that we are most familiar with by name and frequency of occurrence whose history we understand the best.
Rev. L. Jenyns.
Some years since, when "national education" was in danger of running mad, Lord Ashburton made an effort to bring the system back to the bounds of reason and common sense by offering prizes for the successful teaching of "common things." It has been said that the effort was a failure, as compared with what was hoped of it; but it is not always easy to set down in figures, and draw up a correct balance-sheet, of such ventures until the disturbance caused by a sudden check subsides again into a calm. There is no doubt that the "skid" on the wheel did cause a check, did raise a dust, and did prevent the "old stage" dashing recklessly downhill to a final "smash." It is only in contemplating what the direction and aim of the dominant system is, and forecasting its horoscope, or determining in our own minds what that system might, in its working, be carried to, that we can imagine the benefits of a seasonable check. We can forgive the error of rushing to the opposite extreme, because we have faith that in the future it will be the medium that prevails.
This is applicable, in its spirit, if not in letter, to other than national education, and hears its moral, which he who runs may read.
There is cause for regret that in the study of the natural history sciences, the tune aim is so often and studiously obscured by pedantry and ostentation, induced, perhaps, by a false notion of the end which is sought to be attained. The pursuit of science should cause the abnegation of self; instead of which, it is, alas! too often immolated at the shrine of selfishness.
These remarks do not apply to the true lovers of science. Let those who deserve the questionable honour appropriate it to themselves.
To collect any number of wild flowers, weeds, grasses, or twigs of trees, dry them between sheets of blotting-paper, then get a friend to aid in attaching to each a label with a Latin name and a date, is no better than "haymaking."
To catch any number of butterflies and moths, pin them out at certain angles on pieces of cork, and when dry to transfer them to glazed boxes with a little ticket, on which some imposing word stands, in all the glory of small capitals, and which, perhaps, some obliging expert has helped in placing, only deserves the name of "flycatching."
Haymaking and flycatching may be very healthy occupations for the body, but they do not therefore rise to the dignity of science, or merit regard as intellectual pursuits.
We by no means deprecate the practice of forming a berbarium or a collection of insects, but we have a word or two to say about this same haymaking and flycatching, believing it to be a "delusion and a snare." In itself, collecting is not science, but an aid to its prosecution. A cabinet and a herbarium are only tools wherewith work of a certain kind may be done, and a man is no more a botanist or entomologist on account of their possession than another may be a skilled carpenter because he has a good chest of chisels and planes. Each may be the means whereby a certain end is to be attained the mistake consists in regarding the means as the end. It is too much the habit with amateurs to flatter themselves into the belief, because they have made good collections (by some means named correctly), that therefore they are scientific men. What a shock it would be to their feelings to tell them the sober truth, fat they are only haymakers or flycatchers. How have the individual specimens been named, in the majority of cases, in the collections of such mere collectors? If they can lay their hands upon their hearts and affirm that they have named them all themselves, how has it been done? Surely it is no difficult task in these modern days to obtain access to accurate herbaria and cabinets, and by comparison, or rather, by matching form against form; or by the aid of figures in the numerous illustrated works, it may be quite possible that an entire collection has been named, without reference to a generic or specific description, or a just appreciation of any but the most prominent and characteristic differences discernible at a superficial glance, and without the least attempt at analytical examination. How much botany, for instance, is there in determining that