WINTER MEETING. 323 



Course of Study. 



OBSERVATION. 



Within comparatively recent times, the civilized states of the 

 world, following in rapid succession, have inaugurated great educational 

 systems at enormous cost. JiTever before in the history of the world 

 did education occupy so large a place in the minds and hearts of the 

 people. In view of this unprecedented interest and enormous expendi- 

 ture, it is fitting seriously to inquire the end to be compassed through 

 these educational systems. Education should seek to give the learner 

 the completes! mastery of his environment— the most familiar acquaint- 

 ance with nature and man, through observation and books, and the 

 ability to communicate the knowledge thus acquired to his fellow-man. 

 Kot that acquaintance with nature (almost universal the world over), 

 which consists of a memory gorged upon the uninteresting facts 

 and involved nomenclature of the books of natural science, but that 

 acquaintance with nature ( beginning at the cradle and ending at the 

 grave ) that enables the possessor to chain nature's forces to the char- 

 iot wheels of man's legitimate wants, and, in love and admiration, to 

 look through nature to nature's God. Instruction in nature in the 

 secondary institutions of learning in this country may be aptly charac- 

 terized as a gluttony of the memory. What is the course of study in 

 nature in the common schools of this country, where fifteen sixteenths 

 of the people recive their entire education, and all who enter second- 

 ary institutions of learning must receive their preparation therefor*? 

 I answer, geography expanded in three or four books, and physiology 

 in grades seven and eight. What philosopher, closely observing child 

 nature, has learned that the child is intensely interested in distant capes 

 and obscure towns and rivers, and not at all interested in this nature 

 that surrounds him on all sides f The child, from infancy, is full of 

 curosity concerning this nature, whose varied and interesting forms 

 press about his every footstep. He is interested, not in any one special 

 form of nature, not in any one kingdom or in any one part of a 

 kingdom, which may be bound in a book and labeled " branch,'' but 

 in the entire sphere of nature so far as it is adapted to his stage of 

 development: in the burning of the tire, the expanding of the flowers 

 and the habits of animals ; in the dropped ball that goes racing toward 

 the earth like a thing of life ; in the water that rushes up the pump 

 stock in obedience to the pressure of the air ; in the succession of day 

 and night and the seasons; in the king of day and the queen of night. 



