silk gown; the professors and tutors occupy pews on the platform, on either side of him; the outgoing class occupy the pews of the centre aisle, the other undergraduates the pews at the sides, and the spectators (among whom are many ladies) the gallery. The ceremony of presentation' over (performed in Latin), the class orator and poet mount the platform in turn, and deliver their compositions. These are elected by the class, and are usually the most talented members of it, each in his own particular sphere, and their effusions refer, of course, to the day -to the memories of the past, and forward-lookings into the future. The class is then invited to a lunch with the faculty in the great hall of the University-a cold but very palatable lunch, not at all stiff, and only puritanic in the absence of all potables stronger than lemonade. And now, for the first time, the reverend president and his colleagues condescend to be facetious, and let the astonished about-to-be alumni into a new phase of their characters. Short speeches are made, witticisms abound, and it is a very jolly entertainment altogether.

The Class Committee' has meanwhile been busy making preparations for the performances of the afternoon. Under the noble and wide-spreading elms benches have been arranged in a wide circle; here, some time after the presidential lunch, the outgoing class assemble for their last jolly time.'

Long

pipes and tobacco, and refreshments of a more substantial character, are provided: the class take their places on the benches, and throw themselves without order on the lawn between them, and prepare to listen to the Class Histories.' The windows of the dormitories, which

overlook the scene, are filled with the mothers, sisters, cousins, sweethearts, and lady friends of the students, especially of the outgoing class; and outside the 'ring' is collected a thick dense circle of the other undergraduates, some of whom stand on benches and chairs the better to view the performances. The Class Historians,' whose duty it is to infuse as much humour as possible into their pieces, and to describe their classmates, especially those who have left the University, as funnily and ludicrously as possible, begin, and proceed to give histories of the class amid much applause and laughter at the wellknown incidents and allusions they introduce. Then comes the sad parting of the members of the class with each other, each going round the ring and embracing and weeping manly tears over beloved friends from whom he is to part, and in company with whom he has spent four long happy years. The last ceremony is that of marching in procession from one college building to another, and heartily cheering each in turn: and then the ivy' is planted, a song being sung and a sprig of ivy being set in the ground by the side of the large freestone library edifice, on one of whose stones is an appropriate inscription This last emblem and memorial deposited, the class breaks up, never to meet again as undergraduates.

class

From these few notes I hope the English reader will be able to perceive somewhat of the spirit and habits of student life in America; and if they serve, in this respect, to make the sister races, however little, better acquainted with each other, I shall be more than repaid for having written it.

GEORGE MAKEPEACE TOWLE.

TO those who take any interest in

be no subject that can be more interesting than scientific biography. The search after the wisdom that God has so abundantly hidden on every side, that man may seek it out, forms the highest exercise for the highest powers, and has a supreme interest for all to whom the attainment of truth is the dearest object of life. It is to be noted that the character of such biography indefinitely varies. Sometimes it is merely the record of the silent progress achieved by the thinker in his study or laboratory. The narrative of his history is simply the explanation of his discoveries, and the perusal of an undiluted scientific biography becomes almost as difficult as the perusal of the Principia.' Specimens of such a biography are to be found in such a work as Professor Tyndall's account of Faraday, which has attained much deserved popularity, and also in the recent Anatomical Memoirs of Professor Goodsir.' These may be called severe books; but still, beyond any abstruse and difficult reading, they have both a scientific interest and a deep human personal interest. In these the scientific interest is paramount, and the literary interest is subordinate. There are other works of scientific biography, medical biography, for example-we may instance the Life of Sir Astley Cooper, or the Autobiography of Sir Benjamin Brodie-where personal incidents come uppermost. And then there are some biographies, such as those of Humboldt and Audubon, which give us some of the warmest colours of poetry and some of the most thrilling incidents of romance. A supreme moral interest is given to the lives of such men of science, who in all their investigations and their methods of inquiry thus work out the idea of Final Causes; when, differing from such men as M. Comte

and Mr. Herbert Spencer, who freely criticise the arrangements of creation, they believe, with such men as Harvey and Whewell, that nature is the art of God; that the world is the result of design; and that every effect is intended, and has a purpose.

The one side of the biography of men of science consists, therefore, in the description and registration of their achievements and the methods of observation and reasoning by which they attained to their discoveries. In the highest order of scientific discoverers this seems to be attained by the union of the imaginative with the logical faculty. This is strikingly shown by a sentence of our great philosopher, Faraday, in describing his youthful life. He delighted, and could believe in the Arabian Nights;' but at the same time I could trust a fact, and always cross-examined an assertion.' Now this is just as it should be. Science has told us many marvels, and may yet leave the Eastern imagination lagging behind. We do not, indeed, fly over the tops of mountains, but we do much the same thing, and in less time, by diving beneath them. An ingenious writer has invented a thousand-and-second night, in which the Sultana tells her husband all the marvels of steam, and the Sultan, unable to put up with such a liar any longer, promptly has her head cut off the first thing the following morning. The man of science may make the most daring hypotheses; but in the process of verification he proceeds step by step with the utmost caution and certitude. 'I cannot but doubt,' says Faraday,' that he who, as a mere philosopher, has most power of penetrating the secrets of nature, and guessing by hypotheses as to her mode of working, will also be most careful for his own safe progress and that of others, to distinguish the knowledge which consists

of assumption-by which I mean theory and hypothesis-from that which is the knowledge of facts and laws.' Guessing by hypothesis and testing hypothesis by experiment, is the true habit of the first-rate scientific mind. Such a mind will also admit that the law which seems to bind phenomena most closely together may be still not the true law, but only provisional formulæ until the true law is attained.

There is generally a correlation between the mental and the moral life of men of science. That pas

sionate love of truth which is the motive power of all their researches accompanies them into all other ranges of life. This is the fact that lends a certain degree of probability to all apologists of Bacon, and makes us so eagerly welcome any evidence that may be adduced on his behalf. There is something almost apostolic in the simplicity and fervour of a true son of science. He becomes its devotee and almost its martyr. The spirit of the man of science in much approximates to the true priestly and missionary spirit. Rank and riches seem very small things and are almost despised in the comparison. Thus it was with Faraday. From any kind of rank he shrank with instinctive abhorrence.

After

his great discovery of magnetoelectric induction - perhaps the greatest discovery ever made by an investigator- he might easily have made a hundred thousand pounds by entering into business relations; but he firmly resolved that he would pursue science rather than wealth; and he not only threw aside all these material considerations, but again and again he sacrificed health as the result of severe continuous mental strain. But he found his own exceeding great reward in that intense happiness which awaits upon the attainment of knowledge, and the conviction that he was enlarging the limits of the human mind, and that region of the material universe over which the mind is progressively extending its empire.*

Several volumes of scientific bioWe need hardly refer to Professor Tyndall's Memoirs of Faraday,' published

last year.

graphy have lately been published, which can hardly fail to procure a high place in permanent literature. They contain, in varying proportions, the scientific element and the biographical element. As a rule they are by no means such severe reading as might be imagined; and in their ethical lessons the calmness, the truth, the earnestness, the patience and accuracy, the devoted love of nature, might be valuable indeed to this generation. As an example of scientific biography, showing an absolute devotion, and even a martyrdom to science, there is no more remarkable work than the two handsome, massive volumes which make up the Anatomical Memoirs' of Goodsir. To men of science it will be a work of singular and almost unrivalled attractions, and we are using no language of exaggeration when we say that it ought to receive a place in every considerable library in the kingdom. But that portion for which the public will chiefly care is that large part of the first volume which is taken up by Dr. Lonsdale's Memoir, of which the personal and ethical interest is exceedingly great; and we would strongly urge upon the publishers that they would do well to issue this in a separate form suited for a wide general circulation. Goodsir possessed the genuine scientific spirit-the innate love of truth, from whatever quarter it might come, and to whatever results it might lead. On one occasion he said to an assistant, 'Now, Mr. Stirling, let us have God's truth in the measurements. God's truth is everything; I live for that.' He searched into the secrets of the structure of organizations with unflinching boldness; and yet it is truly said of him by the Lancet,' that 'he yet retained his belief in creation, in the limitation of species, in revelation, and in the essential distinction between man and all anthropoid creatures.'

The Goodsirs of Fife were for ge

The Anatomical Memoirs of John Goodsir, F.R.S., late Professor of Anatomy in the University of Edinburgh. Edited by William Turner, M.B. With a Biographical Memoir by Henry Lonsdale, M.D. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black.

nerations a medical family. John Goodsir's grandfather, and all his uncles, and some of his brethren, were medical men. He was brought up at Anstruther, and from his earliest years drank in the love of natural science on the shore and in the fields, enjoying that frugal, pious, sensible education which it had long been the glory of Scottish homes to impart. The lad was always busy about the rigging of the small craft in Anster harbour, and searching into the contents of the marine nets. Marine zoology formed the deepest charm for him; and it was his greatest delight to be busy with treasures on the beach, or to haul in a sheet while the light fishingsmack was bounding over the northern waves. Professor Syme, too, coming into his father's neighbourhood, found reason to commend the boy's knowledge and love of chemistry. It seems to us that in chemical science, more than in any other direction of the human mind, 'the boy is father to the man.' Many an instance might be given where such a boyhood as Goodsir's has prepared for such a future life. He early developed the thorough love of anatomy which is the surest sign of the scientific mind-a study which is detested by the idle medical student, but without which no medical man, whether physician or surgeon, can attain to real eminence. For several years Goodsir was apprenticed to a dentist-a drudgery abhorrent to a man of his wide aims, but which led to those writings on the Pulps and Sacs of the Human Teeth' which are among the very best things he ever did. There is something very fresh and interesting in the memorable brotherhood of which Goodsir and Edward Forbes were fratres, then formed at Edinburgh. Their motto was, 'Learning, love, and wine,' and their title, 'The Universal Brotherhood of the Friends of Truth.' The vinous element was, however, subsequently eliminated on account of weaker brethren, who made it too prominent a feature of their system. When the University of Edinburgh determined to make their Museum of Anatomical and Natural Science adequate to the

wants of the day, Goodsir was made their conservator. He had also been conservator to the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, and he became a curator of that famous institution, The Royal Medical' of Edinburgh.

Up in an attic, or topmost flight, in Edinburgh, which some called the barracks, and others our palace,' there used to meet a wonderful concentration of the genius and learning of Edinburgh; and many were the illustrious men, foreigners included, who climbed those many flights of stairs to the simple social gatherings which, as intellectual feasts, left vulgar wealth poor indeed.

As Demonstrator and Curator of the University Museum, and subsequently as Professor of Anatomy, Goodsir's achieved position was dignified and important enough, and he considered that he had attained the pedestal of his ambition. He is inost honourably distinguished as having brought the system of teaching anatomy to the highest point of perfection. To the very end of his life Goodsir was himself a learner, and looked on the most commonplace forms as susceptible of a higher interpretation than they had as yet received. John Hunter, the anatomist and surgeon, was his great ideal. He saw that, after all, practice was the great end of medical education, carrying it into active use, supplementing it with daily experiments, rounding the circle of science, co-operating with men's knowledge, and fraught with the highest practical blessings. wished also for more extended means to carry on his scientific researches in a more extended way. We fully see the force of his reasoning, and therefore we own to being considerably astonished at his conduct; for, not being elected to the office of Assistant-Surgeon to the Infirmary, he cut the institution and the practice of medicine. As a medical man he was also culpably neglectful of all the laws of health. He altogether overtaxed himself. His face was pallid, and his limbs shaky. The loss of his brother Harry, who was surgeon to Sir John Franklin's fatal

He

expedition, and of his friend Edward Forbes, were sad blows to him. He would work seven hours a day all through his holidays. Even when he went abroad his chief notion of enjoyment was to spend the whole of the day in working through foreign museums. And so he completely broke up. His class saw him day by day dying on his feet, and continuing his lectures till he fell prostrate and insensible. His friends had in vain vehemently urged upon him that it was better to live for the advancement of science than add another name to its list of martyrs. Had he more wisely distributed his time and husbanded his resources, he might have attained a much higher degree of success in those large aims which he purposed to himself. As it was, there was hardly any greater anatomist in these kingdoms, or one whose name is more known and honoured abroad. It is hardly here, however, that we can venture to describe the precise nature of his work.

We have hardly ever seen a more beautiful and perfect example of scientific biography than that furnished by the recent Memoir of Dr. Harvey." It is a fascinating book, written throughout in a thoroughly popular style and replete with the highest interest and instruction. Dr. Harvey was not one of the great discoverers or theorists of science; his humbler walk lay in paths more susceptible of being followed by thoughtful and industrious imitators. He was, if any man, a born botanist. The wild flower and the seaweed were for him objects more glorious than all the glory of Solomon. From a child he manifested the most intense love of natural scenery. To collect all the butterflies he could, to gather shells on the beach and arrange them in order, to collect all the plants that came in his way, were the amusement of childhood, which to many might have seemed childish enough. We

Memoir of W. H. Harvey, M.D., F.R.S., late Professor of Botany, Trinity College, Dublin. With Selections from his Journal and Correspondence.' Bell and Daldy.

only wish that children more generally possessed such tastes, and that those about them knew how to develop and foster that love of nature, which, in the case of many, leads to the highest results, and in the case of all, is fraught with the purest enjoyment. In the case of Harvey the bye-play became the business of life, and when his ordinary avocations failed him, gave him position, eminence, and fame. Wherever he wandered the young naturalist collected specimens with a zeal that created opportunities and overcame all obstacles. He ventured to send some specimens to Sir William Hooker, who sent him the kindest of answers and lots of parcels from his duplicates. But while he was becoming an admirable naturalist, he also satisfied himself and his friends that he would never make a good man of business.

A good opening presented itself to him at the Cape. His family were Whigs, and his brother had got a party appointment as Treasurer to the Cape. He accompanied him, and was soon wild with delight at the flora of the country. The climate did not suit the brother, The Treasurer, returning home on furlough, died, and his office was passed on to his younger brother, the naturalist. His duties were discharged faithfully, but the chief employment of his time was the scientific peregrination of Table Mountain and other localities. The climate was against him, and his heart was in Ireland, and he was counting the days which must pass before he could retire. Leave of absence enabled him to revisit his friends and make a tour in Italy. His third residence at the Cape did not last long, for he was now definitely obliged to resign his appointment. But he was not thrown out of work. While he had been occupied in official labours, his reputation as a naturalist had been steadily growing. There was a vacancy in the University of Dublin, and Harvey became Curator of the Herbarium, and afterwards Professor of Botany.

The instinct of travel was strong upon Professor Harvey. As a bota