NATURE STUDIES FOR THE YOUNG. 11 
of one piece and carefully essay to whittle it to a point. I find, in spite of my 
best efforts, that, just as soon as it begins to approach a point, it breaks square 
off and, instead of the desired acuteness, nothing but a blunt end appears. I 
try another and another wifi the same result till the whole block is used up and, 
after all, have failed to make a single sharp point, and, of course, have no tooth- 
picks. Undaunted, I take the other block and split it with the grai?t into just as 
many strips as I sawed off before. Now, with much less care in working and in 
much less time, I have made five neat, uniformly tapering, sharp, symmetrical, 
effective tooth-picks. Why, now, did I succeed with the last lot and signally fail 
with the first ? The answer, obvious and conclusive, is that in the first case I 
went the wrong way to work ; I tried to sharpen the sticks across the grain. 
If I understand the teacher's work, it is primarily to sharpen and make ef- 
fective for the future use the minds of his pupils. And according to the best of 
my observation and experience, most have, in the main, gone the wrong way to 
work. They have tried to work the material across the grain. Now, obviously, 
the first thing to consider in making the tooth-picks was the best way of working 
the pine. Equally obvious is it that the first consideration of the intellect sharp- 
ener is to know something of the material with and upon which he has to work. 
What is the bent of mind he has to sharpen? What is the natural order of 
mental development ? What are the first things that attract the attention of the 
opening mind? Are they definitions, rules, principles; or are they facts ? There 
is clearly but one answer. As facts, are they conceived or perceived? Are they 
presented to the mind from within or from without ? Do they affect his con- 
sciousness or his senses ? When does a child's education begin ? 
The first things that attract the attention of children are the objects and 
events of nature which they see everywhere about them. And their first inquir- 
ies are for information concerning the what, the how and the zuhy of those phe- 
nomena which affect their five senses. Every child is born a naturalist; and, if 
his laudable curiosity is encouraged and his questions receive clear and helpful 
answers, he will soon become delightfully interested in his original investigations, 
which, in all his life, will be an inexhaustible source of pleasure and profit. By 
thus habitually using his eyes and thinking of what his sight reveals, he will be 
continually learning, and without a conscious effort, the facts of nature, then their 
relations to one another, and, in time, the laws which regulate them, and, even 
before he realizes it, he will be doing valuable scientific work. An excellent edu- 
cator, Prof. E. S. Morse, says: "To collect in the field, to make a cabinet, and 
then to examine and study the specimens collected, are the three stages that nat- 
uralists, with few exceptions, have passed through in their boyhood." At the 
same time he will be finding enjoyment richer, purer and more exalting than 
mere amusement, and will be attracted from much of the mischief Satan finds for 
idle hands. If much of the money and time spent in procuring toys and games 
for amusing the young were employed in teaching them to enjoy the objects of 
nature many of which are always present and cost nothing, it would result in present 
and hfe-long advantage to the child, and would relieve the fond parent of many 
