Scientific Essays and Lectures - Charles Kingsley 5 стр.


One word more, and I have done.  If I was allowed to give one special piece of advice to a young officer, whether of the army or navy, I would say: Respect scientific men; associate with them; learn from them; find them to be, as you will usually, the most pleasant and instructive of companionsbut always respect them.  Allow them chivalrously, you who have an acknowledged rank, their yet unacknowledged rank; and treat them as all the world will treat them in a higher and truer state of civilisation.  They do not yet wear the Queens uniform; they are not yet accepted servants of the State; as they will be in some more perfectly organised and civilised land: but they are soldiers nevertheless, and good soldiers and chivalrous, fighting their nations battle, often on even less pay than you, and with still less chance of promotion and of fame, against most real and fatal enemiesagainst ignorance of the laws of this planet, and all the miseries which that ignorance begets.  Honour them for their work; sympathise in it; give them a helping hand in it whenever you have an opportunityand what opportunities you have, I have been trying to sketch for you to-night; and more, work at it yourselves whenever and wherever you can.  Show them that the spirit which animates themthe hatred of ignorance and disorder, and of their bestial consequencesanimates you likewise; show them that the habit of mind which they value in themselvesthe habit of accurate observation and careful judgmentis your habit likewise; show them that you value science, not merely because it gives better weapons of destruction and of defence, but because it helps you to become clear-headed, large-minded, able to take a just and accurate view of any subject which comes before you, and to cast away every old prejudice and every hasty judgment in the face of truth and of duty: and it will be better for you and for them.

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