124 SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION : V 



if not snubbed and stunted by being told not to 

 ask foolish questions, there is no limit to the 

 intellectual craving of a young child ; nor any 

 bounds to the slow, but solid, accretion of know- 

 ledge and development of the thinking faculty in 

 this way. To all such questions, answers which 

 are necessarily incomplete, though true as far as 

 they go, may be given by any teacher whose ideas 

 represent real knowledge and not mere book 

 learning ; and a panoramic view of Nature, 

 accompanied by a strong infusion of the scientific 

 habit of mind, may thus be placed within the 

 reach of every child of nine or ten. 



After this preliminary opening of the eyes to 

 the great spectacle of the daily progress of 

 Nature, as the reasoning faculties of the child 

 grow, and he becomes familiar with the use of the 

 tools of knowledge reading, writing, and ele- 

 mentary mathematics he should pass on to 

 what is, in the more strict sense, physical science. 

 Now there are two kinds of physical science : the 

 one regards form and the relation of forms to 

 one another ; the other deals with causes and 

 effects. In many of what we term sciences, these 

 two kinds are mixed up together ; but systematic 

 botany is a pure example of the former kind, and 

 physics of the latter kind, of science. Every 

 educational advantage which training in physical 

 science can give is obtainable from the proper 

 study of these two ; and I should be contented, 



