NATURAL HISTORY IN FRENCH SCHOOLS. 251 



the extensive knowledge which is expected of them. They listen 

 to lessons which the teacher imbibes ordinarily from a text-book 

 designed for the special purpose of preparing candidates for the 

 graduating examinations. In this new kind of Bible from which 

 the teacher refreshes himself each day, physiology, zoology, bot- 

 any, and geology are methodically arranged by layers or slices, of 

 which a dose of four layers (irrespective of the thickness of the 

 layer) must be absorbed per month. The scholar has a text-book 

 which is a resume of the teacher's, filled with indigestible prose, 

 crowded with scientific terms, where classification follows classifi- 

 cation. After learning so many Greek and Latin derivatives, will 

 there be time to observe the dentition of an animal, to analyze a 

 flower, or compare stones? No; the natural- history collections 

 of our schools remain under lock and key ; the teachers forget to 

 use them, and the scholars to look at them. But the text-book 

 must be learned. Does the teacher make his own drawings ? 

 Usually he contents himself with the more or less exact illustra- 

 tions of the text-book. How could he possibly find time iov draw- 

 ing, when in one lesson he must describe the whole human skele- 

 ton and define rachitis, caries, ankylosis, dislocations, fractures, 

 and sprains, and in another give pell-mell the characteristics of 

 the Clienopodiacecz, Polygonacece, Euphorbiacece^, Urticacece, Lau- 

 rinece, JuglandacecE, Cupuliferm, Salicinem, Betulacec2; and Pla- 

 tanec2, ! 



Picture to yourself an audience of youthful Parisians who, for 

 the most part, have never seen hemp except in cloth, or oak ex- 

 cept in a chair or table, a prey to this discriminating instruction ! 

 Some of them go to sleep or lose themselves in reveries where 

 natural historj^- has no j^art ; others refresh themselves with candy 

 under their desk tops. And this is the best thing they could do. 

 Just as insects, when placed in a deadly atmosphere, resist as- 

 phyxia by closing their stigmata and ceasing to breathe, so our 

 children escape the harmful effects of our instruction by closing 

 their eyes and ears. The result is threefold : On leaving the pri- 

 mary school they know nothing about natural history, but some- 

 times think they know considerable; secondly, this ill-directed 

 study not only has not developed their habits of observation and 

 their judgment, but has accustomed them to speak inaccurately 

 and carelessly of things of which they have no knowledge ; and, 

 thirdly, most of these little savants hold science in great contempt. 



Is this what the reformers in education expect ? We do not 

 believe it, and we think that they may rightly hope for something 

 better if the instruction be given by the only method which is in 

 harmony with the subject : that of observation and experimenta- 

 tion. Collections must be made not only of curiosities but of 

 common things ; there must be a garden where the seed may grow 



