58 INTRODUCTION. 



witli SO much sense and vigor,! [^ favor of tlie study of Natural 

 History, apply with full force to Microscopical inquiry. What 

 better encouragement and direction can possibly be given to the 

 exercise of the observing powers of a child, than to habituate him 

 to the employment of this instrument upon the objects which 

 immediately surround him, and then to teach him to search out 

 novelties among those less immediately accessible? The more 

 we limit the natural exercise of these powers, by the use of those 

 methods of education which are generally considered to he spe- 

 cially advantageous for the development of the Intellect, — the 

 more we take him from fields and woods, from hills and moors, 

 from river-side and sea-shore, and shut him up in close school- 

 rooms and narrow play-grounds, limiting his attention to ab- 

 stractions, and cutting him off even in his hours of sport from 

 those sights and sounds of J^ature which seem to be the ap- 

 pointed food of the youthful spirit, — the more does it seem im- 

 portant that he should in some way be brought into contact with 

 her, that he should have his thoughts sometimes turned from the 

 pages of books to those of Creation, from the teachings of Man 

 to those of Grod. Now if we attempt to give this direction to 

 the thoughts and feelings in a merely didactic mode, it loses that 

 spontaneousness which is one of its most valuable features. But 

 if we place before the young a set of objects which can scarcely 

 fail to excite their healthful curiosity, satisfying this only so far 

 as to leave them still inquirers, and stimulating their interest 

 from time to time by the disclosure of such new wonders as 

 arouse new feelings of delight, they come to look upon the pur- 

 suit as an ever-fresh fountain of happiness and enjoyment, and 

 to seek every opportunity of following it for themselves. 



There are no circumstances or conditions of life, which need 

 be altogether cut off from these sources of interest and improve- 

 ment. Those who are brought up amidst the wholesome iuflu- 

 ences of a country life, have, it is true, the greatest direct oppor- 

 tunities of thus drawing from the Natural Creation the appropriate 

 nurture for their own spiritual life. But the very familiarity of 

 the objects around them, prevents these from exerting their most 

 wholesome influence, unless they be led to see how much there 

 is beneath the surface even of what they seem to know best ; and 

 in rightly training them to look for this, how many educational 

 objects, — physical, intellectual, and moral, — may be answered at 

 the same time ! "A walk without an object," says Mr. Kings- 

 ley, " unless in the most lovely and novel scenery, is a poor 

 exercise ; and as a recreation utterly nil. If we wish rural walks 

 to do our children any good, we must give them a love for rural 

 sights, an object in every walk ; we must teach them — and we 

 can teach them — to find wonder in every insect, sublimity in 

 every hedge-row, the records of past worlds in every pebble, and 



' By none more forcibly than by Mr. Kingsley, in his recent little volume entitled 

 " Glaucus, or the Wonders of tlip Shore.'' 



