NATURAL HISTORY AND BOTANY 409 



around them, and without which the world would 

 be so dull and dreary, or of the flowers which so 

 add to its beauty. Where instruction is given to 

 children on these subjects, it is, too frequently, so 

 scientifically instilled as to pall rather than please. 

 Long names, useful and necessary as they may 

 be for scientific purposes, and dull, dry text-books, 

 offer but small inducement to any but the more 

 serious students. It is not the subject which lacks 

 interest, but the treatment of it. 



With the acquisition of some knowledge of 

 natural history and botany, a new world, pre- 

 viously unheeded because unknown, a world of 

 wonders, which daily appears more marvellous 

 as our knowledge of it increases, presents itself 

 to us. The daily walk becomes no longer a 

 mere measured mile, traversed solely for the 

 sake of exercise, but, as it were, a journey into 

 wonderland ; each bird and flower, each leaf, 

 each blade of grass, has something to say 

 to us, and throughout the four seasons of 

 the year there is no single hour of daylight, 

 save in inclement weather, in which a country 

 walk may not be productive of interest to 

 those who know where and how to seek for it. 

 To withhold instruction from children on such 

 subjects is to do them great and grievous wrong, 

 and to rob them of half the pleasure of life. 

 Thanks to the printing-press and the superb 

 collections and museums nowadays open to the 

 public, it is within the power of any intelligent 



