John Lubbock : The Study of Nature
Sir John Lubbock
Essays and Addresses
1900-1903
THE STUDY OF NATURE
The subject on which I have been asked to address you is "The Study of Nature." This appears to imply that Nature is worth studying. It would indeed almost have seemed as if this was a self-evident proposition. We live in a wonderful and beautiful world, full of interest, and one which it is most important to understand, and dangerous, if not fatal, to misunderstand. Yet until lately our elementary schools were practically confined to reading, writing, and arithmetic ; our grammar schools mainly, as the very name denotes, to grammar; while our great public schools even now omit the study of Nature altogether, or devote to it only an hour or two in the week, snatched from the insatiable demands of Latin and Greek. The result is, in many cases, the most curious ignorance of common things. The state of our elementary schools will be considered to-morrow, and I wiU therefore address myself on the present occasion to secondary schools.
We have all met persons who have taken a university degree, and yet do not understand why the moon appears to change its form, who think that corals are insects, whales fish, and bats birds, who do not realise that England has been over and over again below the sea, and still believe that the world is not more than 6000 years old.
Two great faults in our present system of education are that it is too narrow, and not sufficiently interesting. We cannot all care about grammar, or even about mathematics. Those who love natural science, for instance, find little at school which appeals to them, and even those with literary tastes are surfeited by the monotony of classics; so that comparatively few keep up their studies after leaving school. Thus our system of education too often defeats its own object, and renders odious the very things we wish to make delightful
Children are inspired with the divine gift of curiosity — sometimes inconveniently so. They ask more questions than the wisest man can answer, and want to know the why and the wherefore of everything. Their minds are bright, eager, and thirsting for knowledge. We send them to school, and what is too often the result ? their intellect is dulled, and their interest is crushed out ; they may have learnt much, but they have too often lost what is far more important — the wish to learn.
No doubt both Oxford and Cambridge have admirable science schools. A man can study there with many advantages, and under excellent teachers. But the prizes and fellowships are still given mainly classics and mathematics. Moreover, natural science is not yet regarded as a necessary part of education. Degrees are given without requiring any knowledge of the world in which we live. Our universities give excellent teaching : they prepare learned specialists, but are places of instruction rather than of education. The most profound classical scholar, if he knows nothing of science, is but a halfeducated man after all — a boy in a good elementary school has had a better education. The responsibility rests, as it seems to me, mainly with the universities. The public schools tell us that they must conform to the requirements of the universities, the preparatory schools are governed by the public schools, and hence the tendency is to specialise the education of boys from the very beginning of school life. These are no peculiar views of mine. They have been reiterated by students of education, from Ascham and Milton to Huxley, and they have been urged by one Royal Commission after another.
University authorities seem to consider that the elements of science are in themselves useless. This view appears to depend on a mistaken analogy with language. It is no use to know a little of a number of languages, however well taught, unless indeed one is going into the countries where they are spoken. But it is important to know the rudiments of all sciences, and it is in reality impossible to go far in any one without knowing something of several others. So far as children are concerned, it is a mistake to think of astronomy and physics, geology and biology, as so many separate subjects. For the child, nature is one subject, and the first thing is to lay a broad foundation. We should, as Lord Brougham said, teach our children something of everything, and then, as far as possible, everjrthing of something. Specialisation should not begin before seventeen, or at any rate sixteen.
Every one would admit that it is a poor thing to be a great ichthyologist or botanist unless a man has some general knowledge of the world he lives in, and the same applies to a mathematician or a classical scholar. Before a child is carried far in any one subject, it should at least be explained to him that our earth is one of several planets, revolving round the sun ; that the sun is a star ; that the solar system is one of many millions occupying the infinite depths of space; he should be taught the general distribution of land and sea, the continents and oceans, the position of England, and of his own parish; the elements of physics, including the use and construction of the thermometer and barometer ; the elements of geology and biology. Pari passu with these should be taken arithmetic, some knowledge of language, drawing, which is almost, if not quite, as important as writing, and perhaps music. When a child has thus acquired some general conception of the world in which we live, it will be time to begin specialising and concentrating his attention on a few subjects.
I submit, then, that some study of Nature is an essential part of a complete education ; that just as any higher education without mathematics and classics would be incomplete, so without some knowledge of the world we live in, it is also one-sided and unsatisfactory — a half education only.
(...)
Coming now to plants. Any one who has given a thought to the subject will admit how many problems are opened up by flowers. But leaves and seeds are almost equally interesting. There is a reason for everything in this world, and there must be some cause for the different forms of leaves. In Ruskin's vivid words, "they take all kinds of strange shapes, as if to invite us to examine them. Starshaped, heart-shaped, spear-shaped, arrow-shaped, fretted, fringed, cleft, furrowed, serrated, sinuated, in whorls, in tufts, in spires, in wreaths, endlessly expressive, deceptive, fantastic, never the same from foot-stalk to blossom, they seem perpetually to tempt our watchfuhiess and take delight in outstepping our wonder."
Some of these indeed have been explained, but for the differences in the leaves of ferns, for instance, seaweeds, and many others, no satisfactory suggestion, so far as I know, has yet been offered.
Look again at fruits and seeds, what beauty both of form and colour, and what infinite variety! Even in nearly allied species, in our common wild geraniums, veronicas, forget-me-nots, etc., no two species have seeds which are identical in size, form, or texture of surface. In fact, the problems which every field and wood, every common and hedgerow, every pond and stream, offer us are endless and most interesting.
But the scientific and intellectual interests are only a part of the charm of Nature.The aesthetic advantages are inestimable. How much our life owes to the beauty of flowers Flowers, says Ruskin, "seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity. Children love them ; quiet, tender, contented, ordinary people love them as they grow ; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in them gathered. They are the cottager's treasure, and in the crowded town mark, as with a little broken fragment of rainbow, the windows of the workers in whose heart rests the covenant of peace/' But in the crowded streets, or even in the formal garden, flowers always seem, to me at least, as if they were pining for the freedom of the woods and fields, where they can live and grow as they list.
In times of trouble or anxiety the lover of trees will often feel with Tennyson that
The woods were filled so full of song
There seemed no room for sense of wrong.
I feel with Jefferies that, "by day or by night, summer or winter, beneath trees the heart feels nearer to that depth of life which the far sky means. The rest of spirit found only in beauty, ideal and pure, comes there because the distance seems within touch of thought".
The open air is not a cure for the body only, but for the mind also. We seem to be on the threshold of great discoveries. There is no single substance in Nature the properties of which are fully known to us. There is no animal or plant which would not well repay, I do not say merely the attention of an hour, but even the devotion of a lifetime. I often grieve to think how much happiness our fellow-countrymen lose from their ignorance of science. Man, we know, is bom to sorrow and suffering, but he is not bom to be dull, and no one with any knowledge of science could ever be. If any one is ever dull it is his own fault. Every wood, every field, every garden, every stream, every pond, is full of interest for those who have eyes to see. No one would sit and drink in a public-house, if he knew how delightful it was to sit and think in a field ; no one would seek excitement in gambling and betting, if he knew how much more interesting science is; that science never ruined any one, but is a sort of fairy godmother ready to shower on us all manner of good gifts if we will only let her. In mediaeval fairy tales the nature spirits occasionally fell in love with some peculiarly attractive mortals, and endowed their favourites with splendid presents. But Nature will do all this, and more, for any one who loves her.
If any one, says Seneca, "gave you a few acres, you would say that you had received a benefit ; can you deny that the boundless extent of the earth is a benefit ? If a house were given you, bright with marble, its roof beautifully painted with colours and gilding, you would call it no small benefit God has built for you a mansion that fears no fire or ruin . . . covered with a roof which glitters in one fashion by day, and in another by night. Whence comes the breath which you draw ; the light by which you perform the actions of your life ? the blood by which your life is maintained? the meat by which your hunger is appeased ? . . . The true Grod has planted not a few oxen, but all the herds on their pastures through the world, and furnished food to all the flocks; He has ordained the alternation of summer and winter ... He has invented so many arts and varieties of voice, so many notes to make music. . . . We have implanted in us the seeds of all ages, of all arts ; and Qod our Master brings forth our intellects from obscurity."
Lastly, in the troubles and sorrows of life science will do much to soothe, comfort, and console. If we contemplate the inmieasurable lapse of time indicated by geology, the almost infinitely small, and quite infinitely complex and beautiful structures rendered visible by the microscope, or the depths of space revealed by the telescope, we cannot but be carried out of ourselves.
A man, said Seneca, "can hardly lift up his eyes towards the heavens without wonder and veneration to see so many millions of radiant lights, and to observe their courses and revolutions." The stars, indeed, if we study them, will not only guide us over the wide waters of the ocean, but what is even more important, light us through the dark hours which all must expect. The study of Nature indeed is not only most important from a practical and material point of view, and not only most interesting, but will also do much to lift us above the petty troubles and help us to bear the greater sorrows of life.