NATURE STUDIES FOR THE YOUNG. 17 
science never was and never will be acquired from books alone. The only way 
to become acquainted with nature is to study nature herself. I would as soon ex- 
pect to fall in love with a character in a yellow-backed novel, from reading it, as 
with nature by reading what others have seen and thought about her. What sort 
of an idea would you get of a gorgeous sunset, a magnificent landscape, or a soul- 
inspiring orchestra from a finely written description of it ? A blind man was once 
asked to give his idea of how the sun looked. He replied: "I think it must 
look like the sound of a very large bell." And his idea, obtained from the de- 
scriptions of others, was about as correct as one forms of nature who has never 
learned to see her with his own eyes. 
Now compare this, by an illustration or two, with the method of teaching in 
other lines of study. To teach arithmetic as science is usually taught, you woiUd 
have to do away with blackboard and crayon, slate, paper, pencils, cubes, spheres, 
and every appliance now used to give the pupil a sense-perception of the princi- 
ples he studies. You would allow the student to waste no time in illustrating the 
rules by working problems, or money for slate and pencil. If as many school 
officials were liberal enough to furnish a blackboard in the class-room and tune 
to use it as now furnish apparatus lor chemistry and natural philosophy, the 
teacher in these few favored schools might work out a few problems for the class, 
but they must not prove or demonstrate a single rule for themselves. It would 
cost too much. Now, if you apply the cost, small as it is, of slates, scratch- 
books, pencils, boards, crayons, etc., used by an arithmetic class in a single year, 
to procuring apparatus and specimens for a class in science, you would see a wide 
difference in the appreciation and interest given to science, and by attempting to 
teach arithmetic a year without illustration, would be better able to see the rela- 
tive disadvantage under which science is compelled to labor. 
Take another illustration, perhaps less appropriate, but more striking, in the 
case of music. Imagine a music teacher pleading with the school authorities for 
an instrument to illustrate the musical sojinds he explains to his class, even beg- 
ging the boon of a tunmg fork, and the students acquiring a '^thorough knowledge" 
of music without either, and you may gain some idea of the attempt to teach 
science ^'thoroughly" with no illustrations; and abundant explanation of the low 
esteem in which nature studies are held in so many schools. Fancy for a 
moment a music teacher attempting to interest and perfect a large class of pupils 
(he usually teaches one at a time) in instrumental music, with only the music book 
and oral instruction! He would proceed somewhat thus : These marks, called 
notes, indicate different sounds. You must learn their names first, do, ra, mi, 
&c. This note is higher than that, this higher still, the next still higher, and 'O 
on, and this eighth note is an octave higher than the first. This note is twice as 
long as that, half as long as the next, quarter as long as the other. This scale is 
divided into feet or measures and there are four beats to the measure. This tune 
begins on a different note from that, which makes it in a different key, and that 
makes it sound diffierently from the other. Now you must learn to read these all 
VI 1—2 
