ON THE STUDY OF PHYSICS. 217 
hear it rattle against the table. The experiment made by 
accident is repeated with intention, and thus the young 
student receives his first lessons upon sound and gravita- 
tion. There are pains and penalties, however, in the 
path of the enquirer: lie is sure to go wrong, and Nature 
is just as sure to inform him of the fact. He falls down 
stairs, burns his fingers, cuts his hand, scalds his tongue, 
and in this way learns the conditions of his physical well 
being. This is Nature's way of proceeding, and it is 
wonderful what progress her pupil makes. His enjoy- 
ments for a time are physical, and the confectioner's shop 
occupies the foreground of human happiness; but the 
blossoms of a finer life are already beginning to unfold 
themselves, and the relation of cause and effect dawns 
upon the boy. He begin to see that the present condi- 
tion of things is not final, but depends upon one that has 
gone before, and will be succeeded by another. He be- 
comes a puzzle to himself; and to satisfy his newly 
awakened curiosity, asks all manner of inconvenient 
questions. The needs and tendencies of human nature 
express themselves through these early yearnings of the 
child. As thought ripens, he desires to know the 
character and causes of the phenomena presented to his 
observation; and unless this desire has been granted for 
the express purpose of having it repressed, unless the 
attractions of natural phenomena be like the blush of the 
forbidden fruit, conferred merely for the purpose of 
exercising our self-denial in letting them alone; we may 
fairly claim for the study of Physics the recognition that it 
answers to an impulse implanted by nature in the constitu- 
tion of man. 
A few days ago, a master of arts, who is still a young 
man, and therefore the recipient of a modern education, 
stated to me that until he had reached the age of twenty 
years he had never been taught anything whatever regard- 
ing natural phenomena, or natural law. Twelve years of 
his life previously had been spent exclusively among the 
ancients. The case, I regret to say, is typical. Now, we 
cannot, without prejudice to humanity, separate the pres- 
ent from the past. The nineteenth century strikes its 
roots into the centuries gone by> and draws nutriment 
from them. The world cannot afford to lose the record of 
any great deed or utterance; for such are prolific through 
