Lord Blythswood, F.R.S

Abstract

THE number of great territorial magnates who take a. practical interest in science is no doubt larger than appears at first sight, but it is nevertheless regrettably small. Many of our landed gentry are unfitted by inclination and temperament to play any part in the game of politics, and their education, though it has not been without a certain valuable influence on character, has not, as a rule, been such as to encourage and develop that healthy and keen interest in natural things which is shown by almost all boys at an early age. Thus too many men, who have been placed by fortune above the necessity of earning their living in business or in the professions, are driven to spend their days in sport of one kind or another from year's end to year's end. At the best they lead a life, healthy it may be in a physical sense, but productive of no particular good to the community or the world at large, and detrimental to the strong plea which can be put forward for the existence of a leisured and broadly cultured class.