4 DEFECTS OF E0UCAT1OX. 



tent. Take one of those graduates who have been 

 most distinguished ; ask him concerning an event in 

 the ancient history of the world, the translation of 

 an admired passage in Anacreon, or the connection of 

 classic fable and historic truth, and in aU probability 

 your questions will be answered. Inquire how the 

 knowledge of mathematics gives new views of the 

 sublime science of astronomy, and you will receive 

 the information you demand. Request an exposition 

 of some particular theory in metaphysics, and your 

 desire may still be gratified. But ask the same 

 student to describe the functions or uses of some 

 common plant, or insect, — one which he sees every 

 day, with which he has been familiar from childhood, 

 and he will be unable to answer, nay, most likely, 

 unable to teU its name. 



This is the radical error in university education. 

 Its votaries are conversant with books, not with 

 nature ; or, as it has been quaintly expressed, " they 

 view nature through the spectacles of books." With 

 the works which form the most lasting monuments 

 of the talents of man, they are familiar ; of those 

 nobler works which bear the visible impress of the 

 Deity, they are profoundly ignorant. 



I have no desire that you should become either a 

 farmer or a sportsman ; but with your mental powers 

 and habits of observation, I should rejoice, indeed, 



