AS INSTRUMENTS OF EDUCATION. 6 



enrichment, and positive increase of personal competency, in whatever 

 sphere of duty the observer may be acting. 



And the subject which, amongst a host of others, I thought might 

 conveniently have a large amount of light thrown on it by such exten- 

 sive collections as those to be met with at the present day in Great 

 Britain and on the continent of Europe, was Natural Science, in some 

 one or other, or all, of its divisions, of Mechanical Philosophy, Chemistry 

 and Physiology. 



Natural Science is a subject which is now more or less attended to in 

 all our schools, I believe ; but of course only its most elementary prin- 

 ciples are expounded there; and the appliances for illustration are, of 

 necessity, circumscribed and meagre. 



A few days, or even hours, judiciously spent in some such collection 

 as that which was to be seen in the Universal Exhibition at Paris, by a 

 youth familiarized with and interested in the elementary principles of 

 Natural Science, might be productive to him of results of life-long 

 importance. Not only, in a general way, would his mental view be 

 likely to be widened, but his profession or career might be happily 

 decided by an extra impulse there given to a taste, tendency or talent; 

 and a hint, or idea, caught from things and processes then for the first 

 time seen, might lead in practice afterwards to fame and riches, and to 

 the increase of a country's resources. 



With the hope that even a rapid sTcetch of that collection may, here 

 and there, contribute slightly to like positive results, I now proceed 

 with my proposed annotations, purposing to add afterwards a brief 

 notice of the Museum at Oxford, and of one or two other kindred 

 establishments. 



The Champ de Mars in Paris, the plot of ground on which the 

 Exhibition of 1867 took place, is an area of 103 J acres. The whole 

 of this space was required for the purpose, and fifty acres more in the 

 island of Billancourt, a few miles down the Seine. In Billancourt the 

 agricultural objects were to be seen, and experiments in scientific agri- 

 culture were performed. Here competitive experiments with ploughs 

 and other instruments worked by steam were carried on, exhibiting the 

 comparative effects of animal and machine labour, and showing the 

 possibility of the application of mechanical force to cultivation even ou 

 a small scale. Here were machines for drill-sowing and reaping in 

 operation. Grass was cut, turned over and raked, and made up into 

 Leaps, by machinery. Here was a miniature dairy-farm, on which 



