AS INSTRUMENTS OF EDUCATION. 23 



parent community, and starting from the point to whicli that had 

 managed to attain ? Especially in respect to the subjects to which in 

 this address particular reference has been made — the subjects commonly 

 embraced under the term Natural Science — should not an adequate 

 indoctrination of the young be secured ? 



It is one of the chief distinctions of the era in which we live, that 

 Nature has been, to an extraordinary extent, interpreted — not interpreted 

 fully : work in that direction remains to be done in the generations that 

 will succeed us — but interpreted in very many respects; and so inter- 

 preted as to make clear certain consequent duties on the part of man, as 

 well as certain practical advantages to be enjoyed by man in virtue of 

 an acquaintance with that interpretation. 



It is discovered, and is universally confessed, that throughout Nature 

 laws reign. These laws does not every sane man confess to be laws of 

 God ? It becomes then even a matter of religious obligation to incul- 

 cate a knowledge of those laws so far as is practicable and suitable in 

 the education of the young, independently of expediency; independently 

 of the efficiency, personal happiness and economy which accrue when 

 a man's line of action is habitually in the line of "those laws ; and of 

 the failure, personal misery and waste which are inevitable when his 

 line of action is habitually athwart the line of those laws. 



To come back again then to the particular thesis with which this 

 address has been occupied in the main, the place and function of 

 museums and other classified collections in a system of education, 

 popular or abstruse, are clearly seen. The admirable order which 

 objects, simple and complex, raw and wrought up, are therein made to 

 take, even to the eye, impresses in a powerful manner the reign of law 

 in Nature ; and they enable the student of Nature, professional or ama- 

 teur, to make, with immense convenience and great rapidity, personal 

 examinations advantageous to his own enlightenment and advancement 

 in knowledge and skill, which would otherwise be all but impossible for 

 him to make. 



I have offered the advice that our youth, who at school or college 

 have received instruction in the first principles of Natural Science, should 

 make a specific use of the great Collections which in so many quarters 

 they will discover in their tour in Great Britain and on the continent 

 of Europe. I have advised that a scheme or plan should be beforehand 

 decided on, to be closely followed during the days or hours which they 

 are able to devote to such collections. 



