Pvn H,i I'UitlS

186 GALEOMMIDiE.
brated voyage in the (
Astrolabe/ France, Russia, Austria,
and even the comparatively poor kingdom of Sweden,
as well as the United States, have excelled us in such
enterprises ; and all that our own wealthy nation has
undertaken in this way of late years has been more
owing to a spirit of commercial enterprise
than to a
desire of promoting philosophical knowledge. Surely
some of our numerous smaller ships of war and their
hardy crews might be advantageously employed
in sci-
entific expeditions to various parts of the world, instead
of the vessels rotting in harbour, and our seamen be-
coming discontented by an irksome and monotonous
routine of discipline. The stale question of cui bono
might be easily answered by pointing to such men as
Sabine, Fitzroy, Darwin, Joseph Hooker, Busk, Hux-
ley, Jukes and others, who were formerly educated in
similar voyages of research. The influence of their
works on the mind and character of the people has been
eminently and notoriously beneficial ;
and we should all
have deep cause for regret, were this race of great
masters to become extinct and be superseded by a class
of political economists who could only teach us where
cotton might be best obtained, or what effect a gold
instead of a paper currency may have on the material
prosperity of the next generation. No thinking person
will deny that science ought to be an important branch
of national education. If any part of the public money
is to be so applied, teachers of natural history must be
instructed—not as at present by skimming books of
doubtful authority and superficial information, but by a
course of sound and practical lessons, such as would be
acquired by means of voyages of discovery. The notion
that science can take care of itself, and that its votaries
can provide their own amusement, is only another