884 SUMMAEY OF CUBRENT RESEAEOHES RELATING TO 



of much of a lifetime to the study of learning how to see, and how to 

 interpret what is seen. No persons are more certain to fall into 

 gross errors than the untrained possessors of powerful Microscopes ; 

 and the conduct of actual research, of the business of carrying know- 

 ledge a step in advance of its former boundaries, must always be 

 limited to the few. When, in 1854, the late Dr. William Budd 

 announced that cholera was dependent upon the presence of a minute 

 intestinal fungus, there were probably not three observers in England 

 who were capable of pronouncing a trustworthy opinion as to whether 

 a given speck was a microscopic fungus or not ; and there was little 

 doubt that the so-called ' fungi ' of many persons were nothing more 

 than fine particles of chalk, derived from medicine which had been 

 administered to the patient. Since that time vast strides have been 

 made in the methods of conducting such investigations, together 

 with corresponding improvements in the instruments by which they 

 are conducted ; and almost every beginner now thinks himself qualified 

 to prattle about microbes. In the case, unfortunately, of those who 

 may be presumed to be the most skilled observers, talk and observa- 

 tion do not always seem to be conducive to agreement. 



It is not, however, for the sake of prosecuting original inquiry, 

 but for the sake of making known to the young what has already 

 been established, that the Microscope should commend itself to edu- 

 cationists. It reveals and displays plainly to the sense of sight two 

 great facts — the fact of the wonderful complexity and beauty of the 

 structure of the smallest and apparently the most insignificant crea- 

 tures, and the fact that all living things of appreciable magnitude, 

 whether they be plants or animals, are built up by the aggregation of 

 myriads of minute organisms or cells, each of which possesses inde- 

 pendent life, and each of which fulfils a purpose in the corporate body 

 by its own inherent and independent activity. If a Microscope is 

 given to children as a toy, and if all that is done for them is to permit 

 them to look through it at something the nature of which they do 

 not understand, it will do them no more good than seeing a conjuring 

 trick, perhaps hardly so much ; but if children are encouraged to 

 examine first the more simple vegetable structures, making their own 

 sections and proceeding gradually from low powers to higher ones, 

 from coarse to minute and complex structure, they can hardly fail, if 

 capable of enlightenment at all, to obtain such new notions of the 

 universe in which they live as will never wholly cease to influence 

 their minds. The lore actually gained may perhaps be comparatively 

 small ; but the true gain will be in the power to think about occur- 

 rences, to discover real resemblances between things which are 

 externally different, and to perform that wonderful work of ratiocina- 

 tion through which two ideas, similar or contrasted, become the 

 parents of a third. It is difficult to believe that a child who was not 

 only permitted to work with a Microscope, but who was assisted to 

 do so in a rational way, encouraged to collect his own objects, to 

 examine them in his own fashion, to try to overcome his own diffi- 

 culties and doubts, would ever grow up into an entirely stupid man 

 or woman. There are but few who are gifted with the infinite patience 



