THE MICROSCOPE. 339 
How many men are to be found in England who have hobbies 
in geology, botany or biology, and do successful work in them, 
too, who are actually engaged in business during most of their 
time.” Itis the teacher who can make the beginning toward 
this desirable end. It is the teacher who has it in his power to 
do all this in this country, and more. And it would seem that 
the sooner he begins to prepare himself for the effort the better. 
The teacher is more than the autocrat, for he can stimulate or 
repress as he pleases. If a single word fitly spoken can arouse 
an interest that shall die only when the pupil dies, the absence 
of that word through the indolence or thoughtlessness of the 
teacher may leave him forever lethargic. 
A naturalist is like the poet; he is not made. But his devel- 
opment may be prevented. Many a child born with a love for 
Nature has not had sufficient will power to resist the will power 
of older persons, and he has been ridiculed out of his liking for 
“bugs and things.” There are few boys, or even men, like 
Thomas Edwards the Scottish naturalist who persisted, notwith- 
standing the weight of the maternal hand, and the sting of the 
maternal vocabulary. In most cases it is dangerous to ridicule 
the boy as a “worthless bug hunter.” He may be a discoverer 
inembryo. What a pathetic cry was that of Carlyle in his old 
age: “Would to God some one had taught me in my youth the 
names of the grasses!” 
In this connection a teacher may have a weighty and an un- 
conscious influence. It ought to be an intentional one. A single 
word may awaken an interest that shall never slacken. A single 
glance through a microscope may start into a flame the spark 
that might otherwise have gone out, or have been slow or late 
in flaming. Aside from the interest felt by all persons, the 
young especially, in looking at pretty things through the micros- 
cope, the teacher with even a small instrument in the school, 
may impart considerable that will be valuable to the pupils. 
Every teacher should belong to the noble army of microscopists, 
not only for the good he will then be anxious to do, but for the 
benefit and the kind treatment he will be sure to receive from 
other workers with the same instrument. In either event his 
reward will be ample. 
A teacher who has no microscope in his school is not living 
up to his privileges. He is doing worse than that, for he is 
