STATE HOklMCULTURAL SOCIETY. 155 



There is about a third part ol' human Hfe, embracing the periods of 

 youth and old age, which is not occupied with the exacting demands of 

 business, and some provision must he made for the intellectual entertain- 

 ment of so large portion of our lives; and 1 know of nothing more 

 suitable, nt)lhing more i)!easing, more healthful, more i)urifving, or more 

 satisfying, than the contemplation .nul study of nature; and the cultiva- 

 tion of a taste for sucli studies, would, 1 have no doubt, save many a 

 young man from debasing iiimself with coarse and sensual pleasures 

 and man)' an old man from the tedium of a barren mind. 1 never 

 heard of any one who regretted tiie time expended in cultivating these 

 l)ursuits. 'i'he poet Wordsworth expresses sentiments similar to these 

 in language none the less true because it is poetical. 

 '• Nature never did betray the heart that loved her. 

 It is her [jrivilejje to lead iVoiii joy to joy : 

 For she can so improve liie mind which is within us, 

 And so feed with lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 

 Rash judgments, or the sneers of seliish men 

 Shall e'er prevail against us." 



Another advantage of the study of natural history is the careful, 

 accurate, and methodical habit of mind, whi( h the ))rosecution of such 

 studies requires and cultivates. 



The celebrated Baron Cuvier, who was not only the most distin- 

 guished naturalist of his time, but who was also a man of vast general 

 attainments, and was often called to fill responsible positions in the state, 

 in the preface to his great work entitled the " Regne Animal," or the nat- 

 ural history of the animal kingdom, in speaking of the benefits to be 

 derived from this study, makes the following remarks: 



" The habit, naturally acquired in the study of natural history, of the mental class- 

 ification of a great number of ideas, is one of the advantages of that science that is 

 seldom thought of, and which, when it shall have been generally introduced into the 

 system of common education, will become, perhaps, the principal one. By it, the student 

 i? exercised in that part of logic which is termed method, and which, when once acquired 

 may be ai)])lied with infinite advantage to studies the most foreign to natural history. 

 Every discussion which supposes a classification of facts, every research which demands 

 a distribution of matters, is performed according to the same laws, and he who had cul- 

 tivated this science merely for amusement, is often surprised at the facilities it affords him 

 in disentangling and arranging all kinds of affairs." 



If such considerations as these strike any one as too lofty, or too 

 purely intellectual to be practical, I must maintain that they are not so 

 in the highest and best sense of the word; and that if they are so, the 

 same objection lies against a very large proportion of human knowl- 

 e«ige. 



In teaching Entomology, the plan has been proposed of hanging 

 upon the walls of the school-room magnified pictures of the most inju- 

 rious species, or what would be better, to hang up a glass-covered box, 

 containing specimens of the insects themselves; accomj^anied with 

 plain directions how to destroy them, or otherwise counteract their rav- 

 ages. This is an excellent method so far as it goes, and may seem to 

 many all that the child needs to know upon this subject, since it is all, 



