The Edinburgh Review and Critical Journal, July 1834 –January 1835. Published in Edinburgh, printed by Ballantyne & Co., 1835. 9"x 6”, (2), (ii), 554pp. Recently rebound in modern linen, with new endpapers. Very crisp. Very Good copy. $250
Includes the following articles of interest:
- “Seven Annual Reports of the President and Directors to the Stockholders of the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad Company” and “The American Railroad Journal”, pp 94-125; - Peter Mark Roget, “Animal and Vegetable Physiology considered with reference to Natural Théology”, pp 142-180;
- Mrs. Jameson, “Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical, and Historical”, pp 180-190;
- The first three meetings of the BAAS, pp 363-395;
- John Marshall, “Statements as to the Proceedings of the Committee for Classing the Mercantile Marine”, and James Ballingall “The Mercantile Navy Improved” and “Sea Insurance the Cause of Shipwreck”, pp 363-395.
In addition to a substantial amount of early railroading material and the interesting insurance report on the frequency of shipwrecks there is this nugget from the review of the first three meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science coming from Davy, Herschel, Brewster, and Babbage, about reversing a downward trend in the sciences in England by having the government make some modest investments in scientific associations. They did so
- “...under a deep concern for the honour of England, boldly pointed out the fact of the decline of science and the scientific arts. They investigated the causes by which so fatal a change had been produced, and suggested the means by which the sciences be fostered and revived.” They felt evidently a fair amount of pushback: “Some individuals, interested in science as a source of professional gain, and others, prompted by vanity and ignorance, endeavoured to thwart these appeals to the government and the country. A third class, already enjoying professorships, and other university appointments, repudiated the idea of a national establishment for science...[and] conceived that philosophers, like Puritans, would be disgraced by secular honours and dignities; and it was their desire that science, like virtue, should be its own reward. But in the rare and pure ether which they breathed, they had forgotten that in the two English universities, no fewer than nine professors had received from government an annual addition of L. 100 to their incomes.”
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