ution should be made a prominent feature of general
education. I agree with Professor Virchow so far, but for very
different reasons. It is not that I think the evidence of that
doctrine insufficient, but that I doubt whether it is the business of
a teacher to plunge the young mind into difficult problems concerning
the origin of the existing condition of things. I am disposed to think
that the brief period of school-life would be better spent in
obtaining an acquaintance with nature, as it is; in fact, in laying a
firm foundation for the further knowledge Which is needed for the
critical examination of the dogmas, whether scientific or
anti-scientific, which are presented to the adult mind. At present,
education proceeds in the reverse way; the teacher makes the most
confident assertions on precisely those subjects of which he knows
least; while the habit of weighing evidence is discouraged, and the
means of forming a sound judgment are carefully withheld from the
pupil.

* * * * *

Professor Virchow is known to me only as he is known to the world in
general--by his high and well-earned scientific reputation. With
Professor Haeckel, on the other hand, I have the good fortune to be on
terms of personal friendship. But in making the preceding
observations, I should be sorry to have it supposed that I am holding
a brief for my friend, or that I am disposed to adopt all the opinions
which he has expressed in his reply. Nevertheless, I do desire to
express my hearty sympathy with his vigorous defence of the freedom of
learning and teaching; and I think I shall have all fair-minded men
with me when I also give vent to my reprobation of the introduction of
the sinister arts of unscrupulous political warfare into scientific
controversy, manifested in the attempt to connect the doctrines he
advocates with those of a political party which is, at present, the
object of hatred and persecution in his native land. The one blot, so
far as I know, on the fair fame of Edmund Burke is his attempt to
involve Price and Priestley in the furious hatred of the English
masses against the authors and favourers of the revolution of 1789.
Burke, however, was too great a man to be absurd, even in his errors;
and it is not upon record that he asked uninformed persons to consider
what might be the effect of such an innovation as the discovery of
oxygen on the minds of members of the Jacobin Club.

Professor Vircho