SCIENTIFIC TRACTS. 



NUMBER VIII. 



FOREST TREES. 



EVERY day brings new and animating proof, that Natu- 

 ral History is rapidly advancing to take the place its 

 importance claims, as a branch of common educatioTi. 

 Infant schools owe their uniform and distinguished 

 success, in no small degree, to the use of specimens, 

 pictures, and other illustrations, to exhibit and explain 

 the different departments of nature. The representation 

 and description of animals are equally favorable to the 

 gratification of the feelings of children, and to the de- 

 velopment of their intellectual and moral faculties. Geo- 

 logy, when illustrated with specimens, furnishes a most 

 delightful exercise to young minds, and is already intro- 

 duced into most infant schools, and is rapidly finding its 

 way into elementary schools of every grade. 



In behalf of the science last mentioned, it is truly gra- 

 tifying to learn from various sections of the country, 

 that the second number of this series of Tracts, which 

 treats of Geology, is coming fully up to its design, in 

 acting an humble but efficient part, in bringing its subject 

 in a most attractive form, into schools and families. We 

 are informed from various sources, that it is leading young 

 people, and even children, to convert their* walks and 

 rambles into exercises for useful instruction, by exam- 

 ining and collecting specimens of rocks and other min- 

 erals, which they find to be scattered around them, with 

 a profusion, variety, richness, and beauty, of which they 

 had never formed a conjecture. While these collections 

 VOL. i. NO. vnr. 17 



