ubject in the best possible way, _i.e._ by experiment. And on the
other, a Head Master of the same school in 1911 encouraging, with a wise
zeal, the rational study of science as a regular part of the school
course. It may not be possible to trace out the complete evolution of
these Darwin Buildings, but I like to fancy that the germ from which they
have sprung is that tool house at the Mount. {141b}

It is some comfort to us to know that Shrewsbury was not the only place
which failed to educate my father in the regulation lines. When he left
school he went to Edinburgh University to study medicine. But he found
anatomy and _materia medica_ intolerable, and the operating theatre was a
horror. So he began to work at science in his own way. He learned to
stuff birds from an old negro who had known Waterton. Of this instructor
he says, "I used often to sit with him, for he was a very pleasant and
intelligent man." He also caught sea beasts in the pools on the shore,
and made one or two small observations, which were communicated to the
Plinian Society.

Then he was sent to Cambridge with a view to taking Orders. He enjoyed
himself riding and shooting, and especially in catching beetles in the
fens. But also in more intellectual ways, as in listening to the anthem
in King's Chapel, and looking at the pictures in the Fitzwilliam Museum.
Henslow, the Professor of Botany treated him as a friend rather than as a
pupil, and finally settled his career by sending him round the world in
H.M.S. _Beagle_. He entered the ship an undergraduate, and left it after
five years a man of science. I give these well known details to show how
little he profited by any regular course of study either at Shrewsbury,
Edinburgh, or Cambridge. His start in life depended on the recognition
of his capacity by Henslow, and was nearly wrecked by FitzRoy, the
Captain of the _Beagle_, suspecting that no one with a nose like my
father's could be an energetic person.

Are we therefore to conclude that the best method of scientific education
is to force a boy to work at uncongenial subjects? In the case of a
genius it may not much matter what he is taught; he will succeed, in
spite of his education. But for us lesser mortals it does matter. I am
not going to talk about the way in which science should be taught in
schools, a matter about which I am not competent to speak. What I shall
speak of is the learning rather than teaching of the subjec