2n.] .' THE FAIRY-LAND OF SCIENCE. 301 



fancies, its own day dreams, its own morbid feelings, 

 its likes and dislikes ; even if it do not take at last to 

 viler food, to French novels, and lawless thoughts, 

 which are but too common, alas ! though we will not 

 speak of them here. 



To turn the imagination not inwards, but outwards ; 

 to give it a class of objects which may excite wonder, 

 reverence, the love of novelty and of discovering, with- 

 out heating the brain or exciting the passions this is 

 one of the great problems of education ; and I believe 

 from experience that the study of natural history 

 supplies in great part what we want. The earnest 

 naturalist is pretty sure to have obtained that great 

 need of all men, to get rid of self. He who, after the 

 hours of business, finds himself with a mind relaxed 

 and wearied, will not be tempted to sit at home dream- 

 ing over impossible scenes of pleasure, or to go for 

 amusement to haunts of coarse excitement, if he have 

 in every hedge-bank, and woodland, and running stream, 

 in every bird among the boughs, and every cloud above 

 his head, stores of interest which will enable him to 

 forget awhile himself, and man, and all the cares, even 

 all the hopes of life, and to be alone with the inexhaus- 

 tible beauty and glory of Nature, and of God who made 

 her. An hour or two every day spent after business- 

 hours in botany, geology, entomology, at the telescope 

 or the microscope, is so much refreshment gained for 

 the mind for to-morrow's labour, so much rest for 

 irritated or anxious feelings, often so much saved from 

 frivolity or sin. And how easy this pursuit. How 

 abundant the subjects of it ! Look round you here. 

 Within the reach of every one of you are wonders 

 beyond all poets' dreams. Not a hedge-bank but has 



