The Study of Natural History : Part 4

Health and Education
by Rev. Charles Kingsley

(Page 10 of 18)

The sportsman, again - I mean the sportsman of that type which seems peculiar to these islands, who loves toil and danger for their own sakes; he surely is a naturalist, ipso facto, though he knows it not. He has those very habits of keen observation on which all sound knowledge of nature is based; and he, if he will - as he may do without interfering with his sport - can study the habits of the animals among whom he spends wholesome and exciting days. You have only to look over such good old books as Williams's 'Wild Sports of the East,' Campbell's 'Old Forest Ranger,'

Lloyd's 'Scandinavian Adventures,' and last, but not least, Waterton's 'Wanderings,' to see what valuable additions to true zoology - the knowledge of live creatures, not merely dead ones - British sportsmen have made, and still can make. And as for the employment of time, which often hangs so heavily on a soldier's hands, really I am ready to say, if you are neither men of science, nor draughtsmen, nor sportsmen, why go and collect beetles. It is not very dignified, I know, nor exciting: but it will be something to do. It cannot harm you, if you take, as beetle-hunters do, an india-rubber sheet to lie on; and it will certainly benefit science.

Moreover, there will be a noble humility in the act. You will confess to the public that you consider yourself only fit to catch beetles; by which very confession you will prove yourself fit for much finer things than catching beetles: and meanwhile, as I said before, you will be at least out of harm's way. At a foreign barrack once, the happiest officer I met, because the most regularly employed, was one who spent his time in collecting butterflies. He knew nothing about them scientifically - not even their names. He took them simply for their wonderful beauty and variety; and in the hope, too - in which he was really scientific - that if he carefully kept every form which he saw, his collection might be of use some day to entomologists at home. A most pleasant gentleman he was; and, I doubt not, none the worse soldier for his butterfly catching. Commendable, also, in my eyes, was another officer - whom I have not the pleasure of knowing - who, on a remote foreign station, used wisely to escape from the temptations of the world into an entirely original and most pleasant hermitage. For finding - so the story went - that many of the finest insects kept to the tree-tops, and never came to ground at all, he used to settle himself among the boughs of some tree in the tropic forests, with a long-handled net and plenty of cigars, and pass his hours in that airy flower garden, making dashes every now and then at some splendid monster as it fluttered round his head. His example need not be followed by everyone; but it must be allowed that - at least as long as he was in his tree - he was neither dawdling, grumbling, spending money, nor otherwise harming himself, and perhaps his fellow creatures, from sheer want of employment.

One word more, and I have done. If I was allowed to give one special piece of advice to a young officer, whether of the army or navy, I would say - Respect scientific men; associate with them; learn from them; find them to be, as you will usually, the most pleasant and instructive of companions: but always respect them. Allow them chivalrously, you who have an acknowledged rank, their yet unacknowledged rank; and treat them as all the world will treat them, in a higher and truer state of civilisation. They do not yet wear the Queen's uniform; they are not yet accepted servants of the State; as they will be in some more perfectly organised and civilised land: but they are soldiers nevertheless, and good soldiers and chivalrous, fighting their nation's battle, often on even less pay than you, - and with still less chance of promotion and of fame, against most real and fatal enemies - against ignorance of the laws of this planet, and all the miseries which that ignorance begets. Honour them for their work; sympathise in it; give them a helping hand in it whenever you have an opportunity - and what opportunities you have, I have been trying to sketch for you to-night; and more, work at it yourselves whenever and wherever you can. Show them that the spirit which animates them - the hatred of ignorance and disorder, and of their bestial consequences - animates you likewise; show them that the habit of mind which they value in themselves - the habit of accurate observation and careful judgment - is your habit likewise; show them that you value science, not merely because it gives better weapons of destruction and of defence, but because it helps you to become clear-headed, large-minded, able to take a just and accurate view of any subject which comes before you, and to cast away every old prejudice and every hasty judgment in the face of truth and of duty: and it will be better for you and for them.

But why? What need for the soldier and the man of science to fraternise just now? This need: - The two classes which will have an increasing, it may be a preponderating, influence on the fate of the human race for some time, will be the pupils of Aristotle and those of Alexander - the men of science and the soldiers. In spite of all appearances, and all declamations to the contrary, that is my firm conviction. They, and they alone, will be left to rule; because they alone, each in his own sphere, have learnt to obey. It is therefore most needful for the welfare of society that they should pull with, and not against each other; that they should understand each other, respect each other, take counsel with each other, supplement each other's defects, bring out each other's higher tendencies, counteract each other's lower ones. The scientific man has something to learn of you, gentlemen, which I doubt not that he will learn in good time. You, again, have - as I have been hinting to you to-night - something to learn of him, which you, I doubt not, will learn in good time likewise. Repeat, each of you according to his powers, the old friendship between Aristotle and Alexander; and so, from the sympathy and co-operation of you two, a class of thinkers and actors may yet arise which can save this nation, and the other civilised nations of the world, from that of which I had rather not speak; and wish that I did not think, too often and too earnestly.

I may be a dreamer: and I may consider, in my turn, as wilder dreamers than myself, certain persons who fancy that their only business in life is to make money, the scientific man's only business is to show them how to make money, and the soldier's only business to guard their money for them. Be that as it may, the finest type of civilised man which we are likely to see for some generations to come, will be produced by a combination of the truly military with the truly scientific man. I say - I may be a dreamer: but you at least, as well as my scientific friends, will bear with me; for my dream is to your honour.

W. Isbister & CO., 1874.
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