by William Swainson

“ As regards Zoology, there is a great show of patronage. Zoological gardens, and new societies have sprang up: cheap publications, on popular natural history, appear daily; and professors have been installed at the two London Universities. Yet what has resulted? We have lecturers expounding systems they do not comprehend, [3] and we have professors maintaining that a walk into the fields will make "a very good naturalist." [4] Meantime nearly every periodical work on pure science has languished or died away. ”

“ The fact, indeed, is but too apparent, that the science of the country, speaking generally, has become superficial, while "neither literature nor art has been encouraged in our opulent Island, half as much as they have been by some of the petty kingdoms of the Continent." ”

“ The stream of national patronage has long been prevented from branching off and fertilizing spots, now impoverished and neglected. Natural History, more than any other science, requires such aid; because it is inapplicable to the purposes of life ”