6 



are occupied with subjects distinct from one's own. It has 

 often been said that to be thoroughly educated we should 

 **know something of everything and everything of some- 

 thing ;" the specialist, however, being obliged to ignore the 

 existence of nature outside his own subject, is too apt to 

 think that beyond his own province there is nothing worth 

 investigating — he has been travelling for a great many years 

 down a lane between dead walls in which it is sometimes 

 necessary to make a breach in order to show him that there 

 is open country beyond. If the friendly gatherings of our Club 

 are in any way conducive to enlarging the ideas, on the one 

 hand, of those who have never yet directly asked a question of 

 nature, and, on the other, of those who have spent years in 

 prying laboriously into some obscure corner of her domain, 

 one of our main objects will have been accomplished. 



Thus, in addition to the acquisition of new knowledge, 

 Field Clubs are capable of doing good work in the way of 

 education. The faculty of paramount importance to the 

 scientist is that of observation, and no study is better calcu- 

 lated to develop this faculty than that of natural history. 

 The power of observation comes naturally to the young, but 

 unfortunately is too often extinguished before maturity is 

 reached by the ignorance of those whose solemn duty it should 

 have been to have assisted the development of this instinct. 

 Charles Dickens says (''David Copperfield," Chap. II.) : — '*I 

 believe the powers of observation in numbers of very young 

 children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. 

 Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in 

 this respect may with greater propriety be said not to have 

 lost the faculty, than to have acquired it ; the rather, as I 

 generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness 

 and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also 

 an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood." 

 Comparing our young Society with a growing child, let us 

 foster among our members this observational faculty, and let 

 us hope that we shall reach a vigorous intellectual manhood, 

 and in due time become a *' feeder " of the learned societies. 



Our most useful work will thus be at first the observation 

 and recording of the phenomena of that district which we 



