NATURE STUDIES FOR THE YOUNG. 
walks of practical life, and the long array of questions of deep, and many of 
vital, importance which it has to solve, sufficiently demonstrate its importance to 
every thoughtful mind. 
Many of the blessings of science are so common that we forget to be thank- 
ful to any source of good for them. To make us fully appreciate the value of a 
simple pine stick with sulphur and phosphorus on its end, we need to go back 
to the days of the tinder-box, to lose the last match in a vain endeavor to start fire 
in a far-off camp, or to be compelled, as was its inventor, to suffer the " gravest 
inconvenience from his tedious efforts to obtain alight from flint and steel " while 
preparing chemical lectures at four o'clock on winter mornings. Before we can 
realize how much we owe to science, we need to lose, for a time, the benefits of 
chimneji's, pumps, time-keepers, glass and earthen-ware, coins and other alloys, 
bleaching, illuminating gas, all kinds of machines, from the pin to the steam-en- 
gine, applied science in arts and manufactures, and other indispensables without 
number which science has given us. Most of the inventions which are now 
gaining wealth for the inventors and the public are made by application of the 
principles of physical science to the varied and rapidly increasing wants of man. 
And those who fully understand these principles are the ones to whom we reason- 
ably look for the discoveries and inventions which are to benefit, enrich and 
bless mankind. 
A critical inspection of the later and somewhat less popularly understood 
benefits derived from each branch of natural science, might add to the strength 
of this discussion, especially those in the line of electricity, of mining and agri- 
culture, and particularly in relation to the ravages of insects upon crops, and 
their remedies; but space forbids. 
But it may be said that science studies in schools have not shown the good 
results that are claimed for them. This is true, and the reasons for it are clearly 
seen. In the first place they have not had a fair chance. They have had far 
less time and attention than other studies. As a rule school boards, teachers 
parents and pupils have a lower appreiation of nature studies, and less interest 
in them than their importance demands. On looking at the facts in the case, this 
is not at all surprising. One's interest in any subject is just in proportion to what 
he knows of it and does for it. The chances are against a fair acquaintance with 
science from the simple fact that so few schools, comparatively, teach it by the only 
method by which it can be learned. Again, if a teacher has been so fortunate as 
to have learned as much of these as of other studies, and enough to see some- 
what of their rare attractiveness and value, he will find i^^ positions in schools 
of any grade, especially in the West and South, in which he will not be expected 
to teach more or less of all branches of study in the school course; and, if he is 
sufficiently interested in any one study to thoroughly master it, he will have 
neither time nor incUnation to master others. Or, briefly stated, the chances are 
against his choosing science as a specialty, and if he does he will be practically 
forbidden to give it special prominence. Science in schools must, therefore, be 
an underling till teachers of science refuse to waste their own time and that o 
