EDITOR'S TABLE. 



367 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



THE STUDY OF NATURE /JV SCHOOLS. 



THE progress of scientific education 

 is slow, but the evidences of its 

 reality are unmistakable. Among the 

 recent and most encouraging illustra- 

 tions of it, we note the various arrange- 

 ments in different colleges for making 

 excursions and expeditions for observa- 

 tion and the collection of specimens by 

 students who are sufficiently interested 

 to extend their studies in these direc- 

 tions. The excursions are to be in 

 charge of competent professors, and the 

 time of vacation is to be devoted to the 

 work. The idea is excellent, as it will 

 combine the pleasure of travel and out- 

 of-door activity with valuable mental 

 acquisition, which need not be so close 

 or severe as to neutralize the advan- 

 tages of vacation. It is especially in 

 geology and natural history that the 

 benefits of such excursions will be most 

 obvious. In the former of these sci- 

 ences, field-observation and the inspec- 

 tion of rocks, minerals, and landscape 

 features in different localities, are re- 

 quisite to give reality to knowledge 

 and redeem the study from the illusive- 

 ness and unreality of its pursuit in mere 

 text-books. Botany and zoology also 

 are subjects which call their devotees 

 into field and forest, mountain and val- 

 ley, and require a kind of peripatetic 

 cultivation. These vacation excursions, 

 half for pleasure and half for profit, are 

 valuable indications both of the in- 

 creasing interest of this class of mental 

 pursuits, and of an increasing appreci- 

 ation of the only proper method of car- 

 rying them forward ; while the friends 

 of science have reason for congratula- 

 tion at these signs of improvement in 

 rational scientific culture. 



But the obverse of this picture 

 should not be overlooked. We cannot 



conceal from ourselves that these ex- 

 cursions are things to be thankful for, 

 very much because of the defects of 

 normal study throughout the year. Of 

 course the vacation is a season of lib- 

 erty, and allows a range of wandering 

 which school confinement does not per- 

 mit; and it is possible that excursion- 

 work may be nothing more than a freer 

 extension of the habitual practice in 

 the school which, of course, is the way 

 it should be. Yet the open study of 

 Nature, in her living objects, is undoubt- 

 edly, in most cases, rather a contrast to 

 college experience than a continuation 

 of it. It is to be remembered that the 

 college has still a definite somewhere 

 in Nature, from which the student can 

 have an outlook upon realities, although 

 the traditional scholarship makes little 

 account of this circumstance. There 

 are natural objects enough at hand, 

 and crowding the collegiate environ- 

 ment, to illustrate a wide range of scien- 

 tific study, if it were the policy of these 

 institutions to make such objects avail- 

 able for this purpose. It is well to go 

 away to find and examine new things, 

 where that is convenient, or where it 

 may be specially necessitated; but it 

 should not be held to imply that there 

 are not abundant facilities all around 

 and everywhere for securing the same 

 general object. The study of Nature 

 is beginning to be recognized as an im- 

 portant part of common education, but 

 it remains yet to be organized for this 

 end. 



THE ACCUSATION OF ATHEISM. 



It has been suggested that, if Dr. 

 Draper had entitled his book " A His- 

 tory of the Conflict between Ecclesiasti- 

 cism and Science," instead of "between 



