Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore

Meanwhile, I hope— though I dare not say I trust— to see the day when the boys of each of our large schools shall join— like those of Marlborough and Clifton— the same freemasonry; and have their own Naturalists’ Clubs; nay more; when our public schools and universities shall awake to the real needs of the age, and— even to the curtailing of the time usually spent in not learning Latin and Greek— teach boys the rudiments at least of botany, zoology, geology, and so forth; and when the public opinion, at least of the refined and educated, shall consider it as ludicrous— to use no stronger word— to be ignorant of the commonest facts and laws of this living planet, as to be ignorant of the rudiments of two dead languages. All honour to the said two languages. Ignorance of them is a serious weakness; for it implies ignorance of many things else; and indeed, without some knowledge of them, the nomenclature of the physical sciences cannot be mastered. But I have got to discover that a boy’s time is more usefully spent, and his intellect more methodically trained, by getting up Ovid’s Fasti with an ulterior hope of being able to write a few Latin verses, than in getting up Professor Rolleston’s “Forms of Animal Life,” or any other of the excellent Scientific Manuals for beginners, which are now, as I said, happily so numerous. May that day soon come; and an old dream of mine, and of my scientific friends, be fulfilled at last. And so I end this little book, hoping, even praying, that it may encourage a few more labourers to go forth into a vineyard, which those who have toiled in it know to be full of ever-fresh health, and wonder and simple joy, and the presence and the glory of Him whose name is LOVE.