;[54 TRANSACTIONS OF THK ILLINOIS 



great importance to the mail engaged in literary or scientific pursuits, 

 especially in their higher brandies; but comparatively few are thus en- 

 gaged, and the great objection to these languages, as ordinary branches 

 of education, is that it reipiires many years' assiduous study to master 

 them. 



On the other hand, there is perhaps an equal danger, especially in 

 this rushing, practical, and money-making age, that we shall take too 

 narrow a view of education, and that we shall overlook the great truth 

 that knowledge may be very useful in a general way which is not di- 

 rectly practical. 



But it is not my intention to discuss the question of general educa- 

 tion, and 1 have thus stated briefly a few of the leading principles which 

 seem to me to underlie all education, for the purpose of making more in- 

 telligible the subsequent treatment of my special department. 



Natural history, in the common acceptation of the phrase, means 

 the history of the animal creation, comprising quadrupeds, birds, fishes, 

 and insects. If we look at this subject from an exclusively practical 

 point of view, it is difficult to say wherein its utility consists. Almost 

 the only quadrupeds and birds which are of direct utility to mankind, 

 are those which he has in a state of domestication, and it is not to be sup- 

 posed that a general knowledge of natural history is going to aid him 

 much in the rearing of these. The injurious quadrupeds and birds are 

 so very few, that all of any consequence can be counted on the fingers 

 of one hand; and it does not require much knowledge of natural history 

 to tell us how to poison a wolf, or entrap a mink, or shoot a blackbird. 



Fishes, living as they do, in a different element, never come direct- 

 ly in conflict with human interests ; and, in the way of capturing them 

 as articles of food, I have no doubt that Agassiz himself would often 

 stand a poor chance alongside of some ragged urchin, who has had the 

 fortune to be born within a stone's-throw of some running brook. 



With insects the case is somewhat different. Though very few of 

 them are of direct utility to mankind, many of them are injurious, and 

 often disastrously injurious to human interests, by depredating upon the 

 most valuable crops. In a merely practical point of view, therefore, in- 

 sects would seem to be the only class of animals that there is much use 

 in studying, and these only so far as will enable us to destroy them, or 

 prevent their ravages. 



The questign then recurs, what benefit is to accrue from the gener- 

 al study of natural history. If there be any utility in it, it is evident 

 that it must be looked for in a broad and general, and not in an exclusive- 

 ly practical view of the subject. I will proceed to state briefly, what I 

 conceive to be some of the principal advantages of this study. 



In the first place, it is to be observed that we ourselves constitute 

 a part of nature. We are born and dwell in the midst of natural ob- 

 jects, the beauty of which attracts our attention from earliest childhood, 

 whilst their endless variety, their curious mechanism, and their wonder- 

 ful adaptations excite the curiosity and invite the investigation of the 

 profoundest and maturest intellect. 



