188 THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. [TO. 



books, bat where alone lie can really learn either war 

 or nature in the field ; by actual observation, actual 

 experiment. A laboratory for chemical experiment is 

 a good thing, it is true, as far as it goes ; but I should 

 prefer to the laboratory a naturalists' field- club, such 

 as are prospering now at several of the best public 

 schools, certain that the boys would get more of sound 

 inductive habits of mind, as well as more health, man- 

 liness, and cheerfulness, amid scenes to remember 

 which will be a joy for ever, than they ever can by 

 bending over retorts and crucibles, amid smells even 

 to remember which is a pain for ever. 



But I would, whether a field- club existed or not, 

 require of every young man entering the army or navy 

 indeed of every young man entering any liberal pro- 

 fession whatsoever a fair knowledge, such as would 

 enable him to pass an examination, in what the 

 Germans call Erd-kunde earth-lore in that know- 

 ledge of the face of the earth and of its products, for 

 which we English have as yet cared so little that we 

 have actually no English name for it, save the clumsy 

 and questionable one of physical geography; and, I 

 am sorry to say, hardly any readable school books 

 about it, save Keith Johnston's " Physical Atlas " an 

 acquaintance with which last I should certainly require 

 of young men. 



i * It does seem most strange or rather will seem most 

 strange a hundred years hence that we, the nation of 

 colonists, the nation of sailors, the nation of foreign 

 commerce, the nation of foreign military stations, the 

 nation of travellers for travelling's sake, the nation of 

 which one man here and another there as Schleiden 

 sets forth in his book, " The Plant/' in a charming ideal 

 conversation at the Travellers' Club has seen and 



