224 THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY vii 



ask, is it possible for you to discharge your 

 functions properly without these aids ? 



What is the purpose of primary intellectual 

 education ? I apprehend that its first object is to 

 train the young in the use of those tools where- 

 with men extract knowledge from the ever-shift- 

 ing succession of phenomena which pass before 

 their eyes ; and that its second object is to inform 

 them of the fundamental laws which have been 

 found by experience to govern the course of things, 

 so that they may not be turned out into the world 

 naked, defenceless, and a prey to the events they 

 might control. 



A boy is taught to read his own and other 

 languages, in order that he may have access to 

 infinitely wider stores of knowledge than could 

 ever be opened to him by oral intercourse with his 

 fellow men ; he learns to write, that his means of 

 communication with the rest of mankind may be 

 indefinitely enlarged, and that he may record and 

 store up the knowledge he acquires. He is taught 

 elementary mathematics, that he may understand 

 all those relations of number and form, upon which 

 the transactions of men, associated in complicated 

 societies, are built, and that he may have some 

 practice in deductive reasoning. 



All these operations of reading, writing, and 

 ciphering, are intellectual tools, whose use should, 

 before all things, be learned, and learned thor- 

 oughly; so that the youth may be enabled to 



