V. DARWIN’S VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE
BY PROFESSOR GEORGE HOWARD PARKER
HAD Charles Darwin never published more than “The Voyage of the Beagle,”〖Harvard Classics, xxix.〗 his reputation as a naturalist of the first rank would have been fully assured. Even before the close of that eventful circumnavigation of the globe, the English geologist Sedgwick, who had probably seen some of the letters sent by the young naturalist to friends in England, predicted to Dr. Darwin, Charles Darwin’s father, that his son would take a place among the leading scientific men of the day. As it afterward proved, the voyage of the Beagle was the foundation stone on which rested that monument of work and industry which, as a matter of fact, made Charles Darwin one of the distinguished scientists not only of his generation but of all time.
The conventional school and university training had very little attraction for Darwin. From boyhood his real interests were to be found in collecting natural objects; minerals, plants, insects, and birds were the materials that excited his mind to full activity. But it was not till his Cambridge days, when he was supposedly studying for the clergy, that the encouragement of Henslow changed this pastime into a serious occupation.