24 LEISURE-TIME STUDIES. 



stitution plainly and vividly before the eyes of boys and girls. 

 It excites their interest in life and living things ; it suggests 

 trains of thought which extend almost into every department 

 of knowledge which has a claim on human sympathy and re- 

 gard. And it can provide the young with that knowledge 

 of themselves which is the surest safeguard against the 

 numerous pitfalls that in this exhausting age threaten the 

 physical and mental health at every epoch of life. Thus, if 

 the knowledge and observation of how the every-day and 

 widespread life of the world pursues its course, and that of 

 how life is affected by its environments, cannot bring the 

 young into sympathy with that outer world into which they 

 must sooner or later enter, every other branch of knowledge 

 must assuredly fail in attempting to fill what admittedly is 

 the great blank in our educational mode. 



Dr. Youmans, quoting the words of Mr. Wyse, remarks 

 that empiricism reigns very widely throughout the educa- 

 tionist's domain. The capabilities of the child, he com- 

 plains, are not duly noted and registered so as to afford 

 a basis for the proper direction of educative efforts. And 

 Dr. Youmans maintains that " the art of observation, which 

 is the beginning of all true science," and " the basis of all 

 intellectual discrimination," is " universally neglected." The 

 teacher's preparation, he says, is " chiefly literary ; if they 

 obtain a little scientific knowledge, it is for the purpose of 

 communicating it, and not as a means of tutorial guidance. 

 Their art is a mechanical routine, and hence, very naturally, 

 while admitting the importance of advancing views, they 

 really cannot see what is to be done about it. When we say 

 that education is an affair of the laws of our being involving 

 a wide range of considerations .... that complete acquaint- 

 ance with corporeal conditions which science alone can give 

 .... we seem to be talking in an unknown tongue, or, if 

 intelligible, then very irrelevant and unpractical." 



Then, also, I need hardly point out that the mind-training 

 which the study of biological phenomena involves, forms 

 another powerful aid in lifting the pupil out of the dull 



