doubt that some of the researches conducted by that retiring philosopher in the recesses of that humble edifice were strictly scientific, embracing several distinct branches of entomology.  I do not mean, of course, that “research” is a new idea in Oxford.  From time immemorial we have had our own chosen band of researchers (here called “professors"), who have advanced the boundaries of human knowledge in many directions.  True, they are not left so wholly to themselves as some of these modern thinkers would wish to be, but are expected to give some few lectures, as the outcome of their “research” and the evidence of its reality, but even that condition has not always been enforced—­for instance, in the case of the late Professor of Greek, Dr. Gaisford, the University was too conscious of the really valuable work he was doing in philological research to complain that he ignored the usual duties of the chair and delivered no lectures.

And, now, what is the “thick end” of the wedge?  It is that Latin and Greek may both vanish from our curriculum; that logic, philosophy, and history may follow; and that the destinies of Oxford may some day be in the hands of those who have had no education other than “scientific.”  And why not?  I shall be asked.  Is it not as high a form of education as any other?  That is a matter to be settled by facts.  I can but offer my own little item of evidence, and leave it to others to confirm or to refute.  It used once to be thought indispensable for an educated man that he should be able to write his own language correctly, if not elegantly; it seems doubtful how much longer this will be taken as a criterion.  Not so many years ago I had the honour of assisting in correcting for the press some pages of the Anthropological Review, or some such periodical.  I doubt not that the writers were eminent men in their own line; that each could triumphantly prove, to his own satisfaction, the unsoundness of what the others had advanced; and that all would unite in declaring that the theories of a year ago were entirely exploded by the latest German treatise; but they were not able to set forth these thoughts, however consoling in themselves, in anything resembling the language of educated society.  In all my experience, I have never read, even in the “local news” of a country paper, such slipshod, such deplorable English.

I shall be told that I am ungenerous in thus picking out a few unfavourable cases, and that some of the greatest minds of the day are to be found in the ranks of science.  I freely admit that such may be found, but my contention is that they made the science, not the science them; and that in any line of thought they would have been equally distinguished.  As a general principle, I do not think that the exclusive study of any one subject is really education; and my experience as a teacher has shown me that even a considerable proficiency in Natural