110 SATURDAY LECTURES, 



developed from infancy through childhood to maturity, yo\i 

 would flout the assertion as that of a crazy man. Yet I do 

 assure you that the similar miraculous creation of a species 

 out of nothing so persistent!}- believed in by many even 

 to-day, appears not one whit less absurd to the well-informed 

 naturalist. 



In reflecting on what I should say to you to-day, I found 

 this question constantly running through my mind: "Why 

 is it that so little is known in the most intelligent commu- 

 nities of the commonest things around them ? " It is, I take 

 it, because, first, the teaching of natural science is .so gener- 

 ally neglected in our public schools and other educational 

 institutions. The child is taught something of the elephant, 

 the lion, the tiger, and of other tropical quadrupeds which 

 it is rarel}^ destined to see except in some menagerie, and 

 nothing of the many that it meets with in every day life ; so 

 that many a man is inclined, with Carlyle, to lament in after- 

 life that no schoolmaster of his had taught him the grasses 

 that grow by the wayside and the little neighbors that are 

 continually meeting him with a salutation which he cannot 

 answer as things are. The importance of things is too 

 often measured by their size. Yet the unseen worlds in the 

 starry firmament whicli the astronomer explores with his 

 telescope are no more marvelous than the unseen minims of 

 creation which the naturalist may explore with his micro- 

 scope ! What is true of animals is true of plants and of all 

 other organisms. Happily much progress has been made 

 in this direction during the past few j^ears, the tendency of 

 the times being strong in the direction of more science in 

 our schools ; in other words, of that education that will give 

 more perfect knowledge of ourselves and the world we live in. 



Education should be a living thing, animated by modern 

 impulses, molded by modern thought, and governed by 

 modern wants, and I think the people of the country are to 

 be congratulated on the establishment of this National 

 Museum, which is foundecf on so broad a bases that it can- 

 not fail to exert a marked influence in promoting such edu- 

 cation as I have indicated. 



