THE MAN 



33 



its etymological sense), that is to say, a general knowl- 

 edge of the earth, and what is on it, in it, and about 

 it. The child asks, u What is the moon, and why 

 does it shine ? " " What is this water, and where 

 does it run ? " " What is the wind ? " " What 

 makes the waves in the sea?" "Where does this 

 animal live, and what is the use of that plant ? " And 

 if not snubbed and stunted by being told not to ask 

 foolish questions, there is no limit to the intellectual 

 craving of a young child ; nor any bounds to the 

 slow, but solid, accretion of knowledge and develop- 

 ment of the thinking faculty in this way. To all 

 such questions, answers which are necessarily incom- 

 plete, though true as far as they go, may be given by 

 any teacher whose ideas represent real knowledge and 

 not mere book-learning ; and a panoramic view of 

 Nature, accompanied by a strong infusion of the 

 scientific habit of mind, may thus be placed within 

 the reach of every child of nine or ten. 1 



Huxley deemed it necessary for everybody, whether 

 for a longer or shorter period, to learn to draw — a 

 thing quite feasible, since everybody can be taught to 

 write, and writing is a form of drawing. The value 

 of this cannot be 



exaggerated, because it gives the means of training 

 the young in attention and accuracy, the two things 

 in which all mankind are more deficient than in any 

 other mental quality whatever. 2 



Among scientific topics he would include the 



elements of the theory of political and social life, 

 which, strangely enough, it never seems to occur to 



1 Lay Sermons, p. 55. 2 Coll. Essays, iii. p. 183. 



