POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



569 



brought to the conclusion that, within cer- 

 tain limits, the substance of the food is of 

 comparatively less importance than the con- 

 ditions and manner of feeding and the de- 

 gree of pollution through germs of fermen- 

 tation. 



Requisites of a Real Education. — In an 



address before the Teachers' Association of 

 the McGill Normal School, Montreal, Prof. 

 Wesley Mills, explaining his educational 

 creed, assumed that the need of knowledge, 

 or realization, is infinitely greater than the 

 needs of expression, as witness the whole 

 creation below man. An individual may be 

 educated, though unable to read a sentence, 

 write a line, or add up a column of figures. 

 As a matter of fact, many men have be- 

 come eminent among their fellows who could 

 not do any of these things. Why has this 

 been so ? The reason is plain. These men 

 understood the forces of nature, though they 

 could not in all cases have stated their 

 knowledge in our conventional forms of ex- 

 pression. The art and science of expression 

 should be taught in schools, but should be 

 subordinated to the acquisition of the knowl- 

 edge of things. The moral and social na- 

 ture of man should receive greater attention. 

 The teaching of religious doctrines and the 

 observance of religious forms are not prac- 

 tical in the public schools, but ethics by pre- 

 cept and example should be prominent from 

 the day a child enters the school. A rever- 

 ence for all kinds of truth should ever be 

 impressed. Only one system of education — 

 the Kindergarten — has ever met the nature 

 of the child even fairly. The laboratory of 

 the college is only the modified Kindergarten. 

 Why is not the public-school teaching more 

 like one of these ? Because we have mis- 

 taken forms for knowledge and words for 

 things, to a lamentable extent. "As our 

 schools are now constituted, I must deliber- 

 ately declare it as my conviction that they 

 tend rather to quench than to excite a love 

 for nature and a real knowledge of things, 

 and to disgust young minds thirsting for a 

 contact with realities. ... I have known 

 children that did not go to school till seven 

 years of age, who had prior to that period 

 learned to be good observers of what was 

 going on around them, lose all love for natu- 

 ral objects after being at school a couple of 



years ; and I do also know to my sorrow 

 that many of the young men that enter our 

 colleges neither know how nor care to ob- 

 serw. They prefer not to look Nature di- 

 rectly in the face, but try to see her through 

 the medium of books, lectures, etc., and for 

 this our school system is largely responsible." 

 One of the remedies proposed for this evil 

 is the simplification of the too ambitious 

 school programmes. Abstract subjects, like 

 history and grammar, should be left for 

 future years. They take up the time that 

 might be devoted to, developing the intelli- 

 gence through cultivation of observation and 

 stirring the mind with the results of the ex- 

 ercise of the senses. Childhood is not the 

 period of life for developing abstract no- 

 tions, but for acquiring concrete ones. While 

 in the abstract it is true that a knowledge 

 of French, Latin, Greek, etc., may help to 

 make one a better English scholar, the idea 

 that an amount of these languages that 

 would be of any value can be taught to the 

 average pupil, without the neglect of other 

 important work, is a delusion. The school 

 should aim to enable the child to speak and 

 write its mother-tongue readily, clearly, and 

 elegantly. This will not be accomplished by 

 teaching English grammar or foreign lan- 

 guages, but by contact with good models and 

 practice. " Time is now frittered away on 

 so many subjects that nothing is well done, 

 and with the most disastrous effects on the 

 habits of the learner. Our schools are 

 dreadfully bookish." 



Scientific Missions in the Olden Time.— 



The institution of missions abroad with sci- 

 entific aims began in France, according to 

 Dr. Henry, practically in the reign of Francis 

 I. Among the earlier ventures of this class 

 was that of the apothecary to Henri IV, who 

 went all over the globe in search of the 

 peculiar products of each country, especially 

 medicinal and food plants. Earlier than he 

 was the explorer who went to Brazil to 

 study dyeing-woods. Among the most fa- 

 mous of the expeditions were those of Con- 

 damine, Dombey, Bougainville, and La Pe- 

 rouse. There are still in the archives of 

 the Ministry of the Marine copies of the in- 

 structions given to travelers and navigators 

 in past centuries — "positively models of 

 their kind, which could not be followed too 



