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want of scientific culture. A kind of culture in which discrimi- 

 nation and reasoning power are in constant use. Shrewdness, 

 a kind of judgment valuable in worldly affairs, would no doubt 

 be cultivated by habits of observation coupled with the ex- 

 perience of natural responsibility for results. 



Reasoning power or inference is most important, and for its 

 cultivation has been recommended the study of language and 

 grammar, or in a more perfect way, mathematics and the 

 physical sciences including natural history subjects. Indeed 

 that study of the things among which we live, and their 

 order and meaning, which begins from the cradle, ought 

 not to cease or be put in a subordinate place just when the mind 

 begins to be more capable of appreciating its beauty and organ- 

 izing it and profiting by it. Every school should have a 

 laboratory for the study of elementary physics, chemistry, and 

 biology. 



Some of the best schoolmasters, remembering that there was 

 a truer view of nature obtainable outside than in the pent up 

 schoolroom, have made a practice of organizing expeditions for 

 the study of natural objects under nature's own tuition. Her 

 teaching is beautiful, and true, and life giving ; but her 

 "results" cannot be reckoned in coin of the realm, and so 

 unfortunately she is not employed under the Intermediate Code. 



The study of the heavens is also one which seems to attract 

 much less attention than its value as a means of culture certainly 

 deserves — I mean of course the heavens themselves — not mere 

 books on astronomy with their dry descriptions and drier 

 numbers. Every school should have a telescope. Even one 

 of moderate power will show something of the glory and 

 mystery of the great nebulae, the wonder of Saturn's rings, or 

 the dignity and power of the giant planet Jupiter with his 

 satellites and belts. From earth and air and sky, from all points 

 we may draw powers of education, and the lifted feeling that 

 made the Psalmist exclaim, " The heavens are telling the glory 

 of God," has still power to draw us from the sordid ruts of habit 

 to " look how the floor of Heaven is thick inlaid with patines 

 of bright gold," 



