avery's own farrier. 317 



who has acquired this position, and who has become an 

 object of reverence throughout the world, merely by his 

 devotion to the study of nature." 



I am well aware that it is easier to give advice than 

 it is to take it. For this reason books often become a 

 dry study; therefore he that wishes to profit by the study 

 of nature, should go out into the fields and forests, and 

 draw its objects around him by the most scrutinizing 

 observation. There he will learn what he can not draw 

 from any other source, and what he can not buy, and feel 

 what he can not write.* 



For instance, if we want to be animated by the charms 

 of music, we must not only study the rules which help 

 cultivate the memory, but we must take an instrument 

 and learn to play it. If we would be interested in the 

 study of plants, let us go to the plants themselves. If 

 we would study mineralogy, let us take specimens, stones, 

 minerals and crystals. Or if we would study natural 

 history, then let us have the animals before us. Then 

 books will have a meaning, they will no longer be a dry 

 study, but grow more interesting and useful as we peruse 

 them. 



Man can not change the principles of nature, but he 

 must learn to take the phenomena of nature as they are, 

 which should teach him humility and truth; for what- 



* The world's great humorist and naturalist, Dan Rice, who has 

 (he says) tamed and educated a variety of animals, from the Rhino- 

 ceros down to the Goose, says the Naturalist can not write ; he 

 knows things are thus and so, but the whys and wherefores he can 

 not tell if he would . 



