ON THE CULTIVATION OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



Mr. Coquand, whose residence and scientific labours in the Pyrenees are so 

 well known and so much admired, has opened a gratuitous course of lectures on 

 Natural History, at the college of St. Bertrand, under the direction of Mr. Cabal. 

 The ardour which his young pupils already begin to exhibit in collecting and 

 learning the names of the different natural productions met with in their walks, 

 and the emulation which this delightful pursuit imparts to all their other studies, 

 sufficiently demonstrates the great utility to be derived from establishing, in every 

 public or private seminary, similar elementary courses for young persons. But 

 let the heads of these establishments carefully avoid the danger that may arise and 

 frustrate all their best and most earnest intentions, if the professor to whom this 

 instruction is confided does not avoid all theoretical considerations of me- 

 thod and of classification, which, at the outset, would inspire repugnance, disgust 

 them from a study apparently surrounded with insurmountable difficulties, and 

 make a laborious task of that which may be rendered a mental relaxation for the 

 young or old. Let him, on the contrary, confine himself to instructing his pupils 

 in the technical and common names of the objects they meet with — let him point 

 out the strong indications nature always furnishes, more or less distinctly, of her 

 own undeviating system — let him, so far as he can, at the same time furnish his 

 scholars with the most familiar facts regarding the uses and applications of natural 

 objects to domestic economy, the arts, &c. Let him point out, as a constant guide, 

 the natural affinities of creation, so as to enable the young student to approximate 

 and class together, from his own ideas, the genera and families of animated crea- 

 tion — let him describe the cheapest and simplest method of forming an infant 

 Hortus siccus, of displaying and preserving the first capture in entomology, or 

 arranging the pupil's geological specimens ; and this study will soon present daily 

 increasing charms, more fascinating, more varied, than any other of their juvenile 

 pleasures : they will imperceptibly acquire that love of observation — of order — of 

 research — and above all, when properly directed, that reverence of the great archi- 

 tect of nature — which will influence their future lives, affording them a source of 

 consolation and mental enjoyment in the midst of the anxious cares of life, and 

 their relative future positions in civilized society ; it will also, at an early period 

 of life, prevent the fatal consequences of idleness or ill-spent leisure, but too fre- 

 quently, morally and physically, exhibited in large schools. 



These remarks may not, probably, be considered novel ; but why has no atten- 

 tion been paid to them ? Eminent men concur in advising such a step. The 

 system of present education fully sanctions the introduction of the study of Natural 

 History, as being instructive to the youngest person ; yet no measures are generally 

 taken to promote it in our juvenile schools or colleges, where, if it is adopted, it 

 is only recommended to pupils of a certain age, whose advance in learning has 



