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take at school, what subjects should he take up on choosinc? a 

 ])rofession, what subjects shall he study aftenvards, and so on. 

 I shall jierhaps make clearer my attitude on the sul)joct if I state 

 that the subjects chosen for study in school life should be those 

 which best serve for the development of the reasoning faculty. 

 The educational results which are aimed at in a rational course 

 are — the development of the spirit of enquiry ; the power of 

 accurately observing facts, and the critical comparison of, and 

 reasoning from them ; the cultivation of precision of statement 

 and dependence on one's own judgment ; tlie fostering of habits 

 of neatness and accuracy. Tliese, I say, should be the results 

 aimed at, not the mere assimilation of knowledge, the knowinff 

 how to get to know rather than the knowing. "We have all our 

 lives in which to learn — "all the time there is," — and if M-e wish to 

 make the best use of it, we must as early as possible get to know 

 how to learn. This may be drudgery, but it is " blessed drudoery," 

 "blessing him who gives as well as him who receives." 



jSTow the study of the Natural Sciences affords, I maintain, 

 the best — shall I say the only? — means to this end. The systematic 

 study of botany, zoology, geology, chemistry or jihysics are excellent 

 training grounds if used aright. And what is this right use ? Let 

 us for simplicity take a concrete example The eager student 

 would take up botany, let us say, as a suljject. The usual method 

 of beginning is to find some class or private teacher in the subject. 

 The next step is to buy a text-book — usually one Avritten to enable 

 the student to pass a particular examination in the subject. The 

 class and the book ai'e generally arranged Avith this definite: aim, 

 and so the student generally finds himself set to learn, and 

 assimilate, if possible, masses of disconnected facts concerning the 

 physiology or morphology of plants, many of which he has never 

 seen, and all of which he cannot recognise. If he has a good 

 memory, he perhaps remembers for a time a lot of this, and may 

 succeed in passing that examination, and be labelled as a botanist. 

 But in nine cases out of ten, where the student is not compelled 

 to pursue the study as a profession, or for some such reason, he 

 gives it up in disgust, and we hear him afterwards say, " Oh ! yes, 

 I took up botany for a time, but it was so dry, and full nf such 

 beastly hard words, that I gave it up in disgust." 



But you Avill say, then, how should it be studied ? Answer 

 yourselves. What is it you want to know? Something about 

 plants, what they are, how, Avhen, and where they groAv, and so 

 on. Then Avhy not go to the plants ; see where, when, and how 

 they grow ; examine them yourselves. But you answer, " I don't 

 know how." My reply is that if you had been properly educated 



