EDITOR'S TABLE. 



699 



Since the years of Darwin's early 

 life much has been done to improve 

 educational methods, and yet more re- 

 mains to be done. School, college, and 

 university courses are no longer con- 

 fined to oral instruction, to language- 

 learning and book-lore. It is found that 

 the direct study of Nature is quite as 

 valuable as the memorization of printed 

 pages, or the ability to write in Latin 

 or Greek. Natural science is vindicat- 

 ing its claim to discipline the important 

 faculties which the study of mere ver- 

 bal symbols neglects. To Darwin, the 

 ability to describe a cirripede in seven 

 languages would have been an accom- 

 plishment of doubtful value ; to find the 

 cirripede's place in Nature was an im- 

 portant and attractive task. He im- 

 proved his faculty for observation by 

 assiduous exercise until it became of 

 marvelous keenness. His delight was 

 in receiving impressions direct from 

 Nature, not in receiving impressions 

 of impressions, such as words convey. 

 His rending and parting of books in 

 bis library, regarding them simply -as 

 so much material, was thoroughly char- 

 acteristic. 



Darwin's school and university ex- 

 perience emphasizes again the utter in- 

 adequacy of any education which makes 

 too much of words — especially the 

 words which only live in lexicons. 

 Because language is a noble faculty, 

 and verbal expression is a power of 

 high importance which can be conspic- 

 uous in manifestation, utterance has 

 been vastly overrated in schemes of 

 education. After all, what can be ver- 

 bally expressed is but a small part of 

 what can be thought, or felt, or done. 

 AVho can describe the individualities of 

 tone by which one recognizes a friend's 

 voice, or the peculiarities of feature by 

 which one classifies a face as English 

 or Irish ? What successful merchant or 

 banker can fully tell why he expects 

 truth and honesty from one applicant 

 for credit, and the reverse from an- 

 other ? What judge can define wherein 



the manner of one witness impresses him 

 favorably, and that of another adverse- 

 ly ? Who can express in speech the feel- 

 ings stirred by beholding subJimo scen- 

 ery or the starry sky ? Where is set forth 

 in print some detail of how music works 

 its magic — now soothing to reverie, 

 now quickening the pulse, arousing re- 

 solve and heroic emotion ? In attempt- 

 ing to communicate art and skill, to 

 convey impressions of form and color, 

 language is powerless. Its dominion, 

 though wide, has its strict limits : 

 " Far out on the deep there are billows 

 That never shall break on the beach." 



Excessive cultivation of powers of ver- 

 bal expression, excessive addiction to 

 books, cause inevitable neglect of the 

 education of hand, of eye and ear — of 

 the senses which give us, when exer- 

 cised, full and clear perceptions of the 

 things about us. This neglect, by re- 

 stricting observation and experiment, 

 robs the reasoning faculty of the ma- 

 terial out of which judgments may be 

 rendered and new truth born. When 

 a flower is planted and reared, dissect- 

 ed, classified, and sketched in its nat- 

 ural tints, it is known as it never is 

 known to a mere memorizer of botani- 

 cal text-books. Iron and sulphur become 

 a student's intimate acquaintances in a 

 laboratory ; he learns hundreds of inter- 

 esting facts about them, and how to rec- 

 ognize them in all disguises. Were he 

 but a text-book scholar, he would know 

 little more of them than their names. 

 It is one thing to learn by rote the dis- 

 tribution in the heavens of the various 

 constellations ; it is another and deeper 

 thing to know them as one must to 

 track one's way across wilderness or 

 sea. Progress in manipulative skill has 

 in modern times not only given us truer 

 graphic and plastic arts, it has led to im- 

 portant advances in physic's and chem- 

 istry, and in surgery made the blind see 

 and the lame walk. Every one who 

 has practiced sketching from Nature 

 has felt the reaction of growing deft- 

 ness with the pencil upon the powers 



