THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



11 



shapes of leaves ; thirty plants, and their 

 uses ; and three hundred more thirties too 

 obvious for me to particularise. By this 

 method the thirty words would become 

 associated in the child's mind with a certain 

 object or objects, and thus a double lesson 

 would be learnt with the same labour as an 

 ordinary spelling lesson. The same prin- 

 ciple might very easily be extended to 

 arithmetic, and a double lesson learnt in 

 place of the meaningless problems which 

 are now sometimes (I am afraid very often) 

 set forth. I think I have made this suffi- 

 ciently clear for you to understand my 

 meaning. 



Besides such lessons as these, which in 

 reality are ordinary lessons, I should have 

 set lessons by a special teacher. These 

 lessons or, most of them, during the summer 

 months, especially in botany and entomo- 

 logy, would be best given out of doors, at 

 the very places where the specimens could 

 be found. Such lessons are much more im- 

 pressive and lasting in effect than those given 

 indoors ; besides, delicate children whose 

 health is often impoverished by close appli- 

 cation to school, would have an opportunity 

 of gaining new life, strength, and vigour, to 

 cope better with other lessons on their 

 return. Besides the lessons learnt in the 

 field being more lasting, they are more 

 quickly and more easily learnt. Not long 

 ago, a person who had for some time been at- 

 tending an in-door botanical class asked me 

 which part of a plant is the corolla. Books 

 had been read and lessons nad been given, 

 but the simple act of taking up a flower and 

 pointing out the part in question, at once 

 fixed the fact in her mind perhaps never to 

 be forgotten. Besides, in these out-door 

 lessons, specimens might be collected and 

 preserved, which would form a little museum 

 in every school, which would not only be a 

 pleasant recollection for those who had 

 taken part in forming, but would be a 



source of endless instruction for indoor 

 lessons, when from bad weather or from 

 any other cause, they were unable to get 

 out. 



Life should be made a pleasure, and 

 while we labour or while we learn, if that 

 labour or that learning can be converted 

 into pleasure, we should by all means have 

 it so converted. What child is there 

 which does not love the country ? The 

 green fields dotted with their buttercups 

 and daisies is the child's Paradise. Take it 

 there, instruct it in simple language, the 

 simpler the better, but still strictly correct, 

 it will derive unbounded pleasure, it will 

 learn an everlasting lesson without even 

 knowing that it has been taught. 



We want places of scientific amusement 

 and instruction. It should be begun in the 

 school, but we want places where this taste 

 can be cultivated when the school days are 

 gone. A young person now leaving school 

 finds himself beset on every side with evil 

 temptations without anything to counter- 

 balance them ; but it is not all sorrow, this 

 world is not all a " vale of tears." It is a 

 Paradise, but people will not see its 

 beauties ; and here in a town like this 

 (Huddersfield), where we have 200 to 300 

 public-houses disseminating immorality, and 

 no public museum, or art gallery, or free 

 library to counteract them is a disgrace to 

 the age in which we live. 



In the words of Wordsworth : — 



Nature never did betray 

 The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege 

 Through all the year's of this our life, to lead 

 From joy to joy, for she can so improve 

 The mind that is within us, so impress 

 With quickness and beauty, and so feed 

 With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 

 Rash judgement, nor the sneers of stLfish men, 

 Nor the greetings where no kindness is, nor all 

 The dreary intercourse of daily life, 

 Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 

 Our cheeriul faith, that all which we behold 

 Is full of blessings. 



