DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE. 



to think for themselves. There is not a child but 

 will break its toys almost at the moment that it 

 gets them into its hands and certainly the in- 

 stant that it has seen their external novelty, which 

 is soon seen ; and it takes a good deal, both of pre- 

 cept and example, and sometimes chiding and 

 chastisement, to break the child of that habit so 

 perfectly painful and unnatural to it is possession, 

 in which there is no enjoyment. To defend either 

 the natural propensity of the child, or the lesson 

 of early care which is inculcated by means of the 

 rattle and the penny trumpet,, is not our business. 

 It may be that when the toy is saved, the desire 

 of knowledge in the child is broken ; and it may 

 be that frugality is produced by the lesson. If it 

 be the former, " the whistle" is, indeed, a costly 

 one; and if it be the latter, probably the best way 

 would be not to purchase the toy at all. 



But all that we contend for is the fact, and 

 that must be admitted, as it is one to which there 

 is no exception, if it has not been produced by 

 teaching. Now if a desire to know the structure 

 of every thing that comes within its observation 

 be irresistibly natural to every child, until that 

 child is flattered or forced out of it, how much 

 more irresistibly natural must it be to speculate 

 about and wish to know the structure of that 

 world which contains, circumscribes, and is, every 

 thing that can in any way be perceived by the 

 senses. 



And, perhaps, there never was a human being 

 that stood gazing and admiring, even for five mi- 

 nutes, upon a mountain ridge, whose thoughts 

 did not turn to the grand subject of the formation 

 of the mountains ; and thence glided away to the 



