common-place books.' He had added the lines from Lycidas: Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise To scorn delights and live laborious days. Soon was Yes, dear Henry! you too had a muse. slit your 'thin-spun life,' 'but not the praise.' A century is gone, and your Star of Bethlehem' shines with undiminished lustre and your hymn is sung wherever our language is spoken. W. A. C. Note.-Professor Mayor calls my attention to the following description of the poet written by Professor Sedgwick in 1868 (Life, i. 79): 'Whenever I met him in the streets I was impressed by his look and bearing. He was a tall, thoughtfullooking young man, with fine features, and with a complexion that seemed to indicate a life of severe study. A month or two before his death I several times met him in society. His manners well matched his character. They were simple, earnest, winning, and unaffected. He had the look of a man of genius. So far as regards his features, Chantrey's medallion gives a good general notion of them.' A MESSAGE FROM NEPTUNE. HE description of the ideal man as one who knows everything about something and something about everything, has far more than its epigrammatic neatness to recommend it. The worker in one path tends to become a highly specialized machine. Let him however at the same time penetrate into the vast regions which surround his special subject, and without being less of an expert in it, he will certainly tend to become more of a master of it. Yet excellent as the definition may be, like the individual it defines, it is ideal. A moment's reflection satisfies us that it is not likely to be given to the many to soar so high. A moment's glance at the history of peoples and the conditions of practical daily life shows us that it is, in actual fact, given to but few even to approach such a standard. In a lifetime of perfect leisure, the task would be a manifestly impossible one. There is no branch of knowledge on which the last word has been written. The undergraduate who reads for honours often devotes nearly the twentieth part of the Psalmist's span to one special subject. Yet, if he has worked well, who realises better than he how vast the yet untrodden regions are. The watchword is everywhere the same-research. Again, the man who would shun specialisation, and attempt to learn just a little about everything, is in an untenable position. To emphasise the sheer impossibility of such a task (quite apart from the signification of Shakespeare's warning as to the danger of a little knowledge), it is sufficient to mention the Catalogue of the British Museum in general, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica in particular. But the assumption of perfect leisure is in itself an insult to the facts, an illegal fiction. The conditions under which we live are far from being so ideal. For how many is life a matter of leisure? For how many is it not rather a continuous battle in which the central idea is the fight for bread-for the fuel to keep the human engine going? Yet, despite these limitations and difficulties, the sterling truth stands out that knowledge is power. Every new discovery which is made concerning the physical and moral worlds in which we live is invaluable, not only because of its intrinsic interest for us, but because it is another stepping stone on the road of progress, a fresh recruit in the army of facts, with which we attempt to attack the problems of life. Under these circumstances what programme can be set before the man in the street by those who would have him leave behind him when he dies, not merely a life of monotonous drudgery tempered by empty frivolity, but one in which at least a few rays from the lamps of learning shall have brightened his path, a few blossoms from the fields of knowledge refreshed him with their fragrance. To tell him to learn as much as he can is futile, a direct invitation to do nothing at all. Even the professional student is practically helpless without method and concentration. What then of the man who, daily working in a monotonous groove, rarely gives a thought to the great problems of life! What of the great masses who, through sheer indifference or force of habit are blind to the benefits to be derived from devoting a few hours now and then to the acquisition of knowledge and reflection on the facts of life! One course suggests itself. These masses must be gradually helped to realise that every great discovery should interest them, not because of the more or less difficult and technical paths which led to it, but because it tells them something new about the world in which they one and all live. In the work of advancing knowledge there is a division of labour, which assigns a task to every man. The work of the specialist is in part to make discoveries, that of the masses is to take an interest in and reflect on them. The more men are isolated and estranged in their daily occupations, the more valuable is it to bring to their knowledge anything which is of common interest. Those who live in different grooves are liable to quarrel when they meet, unless a mutual interest supervene, for they are biassed. It is the feeling of a common humanity which paves the way for progress. The truth of this is illustrated every day. Especially in times of crisis the realisation of a common manhood comes instinctively. This desire for knowledge once awakened, it must be catered for. It must be fed in an attractive and judicious manner. Popular lectures and cleverly written books are not enough. Lectures have to be attended and books purchased or borrowed. One medium however is unrivalled as a power for good in this respect-the daily newspaper. A few carefully chosen and attractive words in a daily paper attract the popular attention as nothing else does. Men who would be scared by a textbook will read with avidity and interest a newspaper article on radium or flying-machines, with head-lines galore. People who have never opened an abstruse volume will read the reports of the British Association speeches. The press has, however, not used this power to the full. Room is made for instalments of a serial story, but no daily column is specially assigned to the fairy tales of science and other branches of research. There are, however, as a rule three occasions upon which the press may be relied on to exercise this great power of exciting interest in a great event. The first is VOL. XXVIII. L that of its achievement, the second is that of the publication of the obituary notice of the man associated with it, and the third is the occasion of a special anniversary. In this connection it is interesting to note that since the issue of the last number of the Eagle magazine there has been recorded on the sands of time the sixtieth anniversary of an event, the very mention of which sends a thrill of pride through Johnians. On Sept. 23rd, 1846, took place at Berlin the famous finding of the planet Neptune, whose existence had been independently predicted and place assigned by two young mathematicians, of whom John Couch Adams of St. John's College, Cambridge, was the first to communicate the results of his work to a practical astronomer. It is therefore pardonable that the writer of this article, to whom this discovery has been a source of great delight, should seize the occasion of So interesting an anniversary as an appropriate one for indicating in a few words some of the great general ideas and lessons which this unique event may be made to suggest to the popular mind. Any diffidence which he might naturally feel in referring to the work of so great a man is dispelled by the thought that the Adams of Neptune is to him not so much the matured master of world-wide fame, but rather the undergraduate in his second year whose famous memorandum is one of the greatest ornaments of the College Library. The fascinating tale can be told without a word of abstruse detail. It is a thousand pities that astronomy is not a school subject. Why it should only be taken up when its mathematical or scientific difficulties have to be conquered, is a mystery. It is after all but an extension of geography. The bare knowledge of the place of our little globe' in the vast solar system, with its wonderful distances, is a training in itself, and unsurpassed as a cure for narrow-mindedness. schools more stress is laid on the height of a mountain In |