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28 Zoology, are fitted to teach many an useful lesson, if they be not perverted in their methods to be made mere tags of moral illustration. Of the two, Botany has the great recommendation of simplicity, and of its materials being found everywhere in abundance ; in sufficient variety at all events to serve for every purpose of illustration in the hands of a man who knows his subject. A garden with a mali or two will supply specimens enough to hand, and the apparatus required is but a few lenses and microscopes, (not necessarily costly articles at the present day,) with a certain number of diagrams. These are not requirements of so costly a character that Collegiate Institutions need shrink from providing them ; nor are they such as render the proximity of skilled mechanics indispensable. There is but little difficulty here teaching Natural Science when entrusted to those who understand it. The ‘Philisterei’ of Indian officialism is the only real obstacle.

In truth the difficulties of high-class education are those of our own making. The Egyptians wanted bricks made without straw, and have become proverbial for their folly. The Indian Government, or whoever the responsible authority in this matter may be, goes a step further and wants its bricks made not only without straw but without brickmakers. There is the clay to be moulded ; that it will provide in superfluity, but moulds and moulders it calls upon Providence to supply, and thinks it strange that they do not present themselves at the call. It contemplates great things in a hazy way ; and looks for great results ; but it hesitates to provide the means of their accomplishment or to ensure that the means are competent to the end. It is on the whole a well-meaning Government, but not a very wise one ; and it is very fearful of spending its money on what it feels, but will not acknowledge that it does not quite understand. It employs a great many hands ; we know not how many hundreds of doctors, engineers, financiers, and others, all learned men, and bearing on their brows the honourable wrinkles of many a well-fought examination. Cannot some of them improvise themselves into Professors? They used to turn their hand to any thing in the old times : and why should they be less versatile now? It cannot understand why all intellectual pursuits should have become specialized, so that a Pathologist should be incapable of making a Topographical Survey, or a Chemist unequal to taking charge of a Hospital, and it holds as monstrous unreason that the services of men who restrict themselves to a single special pursuit should command as high a market price, as those of the men of facile genius who will with equal readiness direct the operations of an army,