lamborn] SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NATURE-STUDY 125 



formerly well-to-do, fallen on evil days, of sedentary habit, in 

 poor domestic circumstances, etc. The story, of course, is that of 

 " The Blue Carbuncle." 



In his wonderful power of obtaining facts from the examina- 

 tion of concrete things the great detective of fiction is an ideal 

 type of the nature-student. Though his observations of nature 

 were limited mainly to man, and especially to criminal man, yet 

 the faculties and the methods he employed are equally applicable 

 to all natural objects; and if objection be made that Sherlock 

 Holmes never existed, even without the knowledge that he is the 

 creation of a man of science and had a prototype in fact in Dr. 

 Bell of Edinburgh, it may be remembered that the great " nature- 

 student " Cuvier, by the exercise of precisely the same faculties 

 as those previously analyzed, was able, from an examination of 

 a single bone, to reconstruct in imagination the animal of which 

 it formed a part. This illustration in actual fact is at least as 

 wonderful as any of the detective's logical achievements in fiction. 

 The faculties used by Sherlock Holmes and Cuvier are simply 

 those possessed but not used by the average child in the elemen- 

 tary school. This is the great attraction of Sherlock Holmes. 

 When he explains his course of reasoning to his astonished 

 clients, they realize that all that he saw they might have seen 

 also, and that the faculties which seemed supernatural were 

 really the ordinary ones which they shared in common with him, 

 but which in his case were used, in theirs were neglected. It 

 should be noted, however, as Holmes repeatedly points out in his 

 " explanations," that people fail, not to see things, but to reason 

 from what they see. They do not " proceed to draw inferences 

 from their observations." For instance, millions of people before 

 Sir Isaac Newton had seen an apple fall from a tree, but no one 

 until his day had ever gone further and reasoned zvhy it fell. 

 This has an important bearing on nature-study in schools, as it 

 proves that, somewhat contrary to the common idea, it is in 

 deductive power rather than in observation that training is 

 required. 



To illustrate the application of the foregoing to nature-study 

 in the elementary school, the writer proposed to describe the 

 progress of an " investigation " which took place in his own 

 school. By the exercise of their faculties of observation, deduc- 

 tion, memory, and imagination on the foot of a creature they 



