ON THE XTUDY 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 

 :my great deed or utterance; for such are prolific through- 



