Address of Thomas Bell, Esq., V.P.R.S., etc., the President, together with obituary notices of deceased members by John J. Bennett, Esq., F.R.S., the Secretary, read at the anniversary meeting of the Linnean Society on Thursday, May 24, 1855.

  • Bell, Thomas, 1792-1880.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address of Thomas Bell, Esq., V.P.R.S., etc., the President, together with obituary notices of deceased members by John J. Bennett, Esq., F.R.S., the Secretary, read at the anniversary meeting of the Linnean Society on Thursday, May 24, 1855. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    published several papers on vegetable physiology ; for instance, “ On the Development of Heat in the Living Plant; ” “ On the Time of Flowering of Plants,” &c., and two papers on the Balanophorece. This brief account of the labours of the three distinguished men whom you have recently elected upon your Foreign list, will, it is believed, afford a satisfactory justification of your choice. In considering the means by which the study of Natural History may be most extensively and effectually advanced, it is impossible not to turn with the most anxious anticipations to our great seats of learning, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It is not for me to criticise the course of education, which, established by the wisdom of our ancestors and hallowed by the long list of great men whom it has formed, has been corrected and expanded by successive ages of accumulative experience, and accommodated, in some degree at least, to the spread of knowledge and the increasing requirements of advanced civilization. Nor am I disposed to join in the cry which has been got up against the great importance which is attached to the study of the exact sciences in the one, or to the acquisition of classical literature in the other. The severe mental discipline and logical exactitude ensured by the former, and the essential applica- tion of the course of study involved in it to astronomical and physical science, are considerations so important as scarcely to admit of an over-estimate ; and, on the other hand, amidst many minor though very material advantages derived from the critical study of classical literature, it must never be forgotten that upon it depends the permanent preservation, in their purity and integrity, of the “ ipsis- sima verba” of the Holy Scriptures. Far be it then from us to depreciate the graver studies which have so long been identified with those great schools, whilst we claim and earnestly demand some degree of their patronage, for those not less interesting and scarcely less important pursuits, to which our attention is especially directed. One of the most important and delightful objects in connection with the spread of natural knowledge, is the genial and elevating effect which an acquaintance with natural phenomena must produce upon the heart and intellect of a population so generally addicted as ours to the drudgery of business, and so subject to the narrowing influence which its exclusive pursuit is calculated to exercise on the mind. And this is not less applicable to the rich than to the poor— to the merchant or the manufacturer who counts his wealth by hundreds of thousands, than to the humble labourer the sweat of whose brow procures his daily pittance. But where are we to look