HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 13I 



opens or the heavens open — which is it ? — and he has a mo- 

 mentary glimpse of their ineffable splendor and significance. 

 How overwhelming, how awe-inspiring ! His thought goes 

 like a lightning flash into that serene abyss, and then the 

 veil is drawn again. ' ' 



That is nature-study star-gazing, the pleasures 

 of seeing, simply seeing without science, so far as 

 unaided sight will extend, but because the eye has 

 the aid of a 40-inch refractor, or of only an opera- 

 glass, it does not for a moment follow that there 

 may not be the same enjoyable emotions. The 

 lens does not make science, but its method of use 

 does. Nowadays, no plea is needed for the use 

 of the microscope in scientific seeing. In the bio- 

 logical sciences it is indispensable and universal, 

 so universal that I fear its use is erroneously re- 

 garded as necessarily scientific. But the micro- 

 scope is merely an instrument for aiding the sight. 

 What a vast amount of knowledge comes to un- 

 aided eyes from scientific seeing. But even this 

 is only a small amount in comparison with the 

 pleasure that comes to unaided eyes from informal 

 seeing, the nature-study use of them. Would all 

 your informal nature-study seers for one moment 

 think of allowing all eyes to be used only for sys- 

 tematic, scientific seeing? I think not, most de- 

 cidedly not. The very proposition appeals to one, 



