io LEISURE-TIME STUDIES. 



if pupils be taught natural science, " they learn a vast deal 

 of other things in consequence." 



No science can pretend to give to the child information 

 of so simple, interesting, and useful a nature as that which 

 biology supplies. Since the thoughts of the child naturally 

 run most in the direction of the objects which meet his gaze 

 in the world around him, and especially, as any one may 

 note in the questionings of the intelligent boy or girl of the 

 age I have mentioned, as the interests of children are bound 

 up in the living things with which their daily life brings 

 them into contact. Thus biology assumes in the education 

 of the observant faculties of the child a thoroughly natural 

 place ; and a position which no other science can pretend 

 to occupy, from the fact that the subject-matter of biology 

 is essentially that of the child's own thoughts, as he specu- 

 lates on the how and why of his natural environments. The 

 late Canon Kingsley was a most powerful and earnest 

 advocate of the extension of this description of biological 

 knowledge amongst the youngest of children. And I 

 know of no happier example of the true mode of con- 

 veying the broad truths of science to the young than may 

 be found in his charming series of papers entitled " Madam 

 How and Lady Why," in which, with a connecting thread of 

 narrative, a vast quantity of interesting and useful know- 

 ledge is given in a form readily appreciable by the very 

 young pupil. 



From pupils of ten or twelve years of age who have 

 been properly instructed in the elements of biology, one 

 may obtain a surprising accuracy in the answers given to 

 both written and oral questions. The chief idea, however,, 

 to be borne in mind in teaching pupils of this early age, is 

 that the instruction must be limited to broad and genera) 

 details, and, save in very exceptional cases, must not include 

 attempts at specializing the science. The general pheno- 

 mena of plant and animal life ; the broad relations of the 

 organic and inorganic worlds ; and the general details of 

 the structure and life-history of the more familiar groups 



