POPULARITY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
301 
will add nothing to our knowledge, and leave the depths of science wholly unex¬ 
plored. This, however, is a false idea. The individual who enters upon a 
pursuit only as an amusement, and is charmed with it, is more likely to proceed 
to higher attainments, than one who began as a crabbed student, and, looking 
with averted eye upon his task, becomes at last disgusted with his abortive 
efforts.* It by no means follows that, because a Linnsean botanist does not choose 
to follow a Lindley in all his admirable details of structure, he undervalues 
those labours; nor can I think that an ornithologist who may not have time or 
ability^ to examine and classify with the minuteness of a Temminck or a Swain- 
son, would at all despise the exertions of those learned systematists. For if all 
were instructors, where would be the audience ? Why, then, should the en¬ 
deavours of popular writers be sneered at by systematists as unworthy attention ? 
Why should this “ easy way” to knowledge be attempted to be put down ? 
There is an old proverb, that, let 'pleasure be the motive , and no toil will be 
thought severe—and so if science only first tempt her votary into the path of 
enjoyment, no thorns or obstructions will afterwards prevent the upward progress 
of the neophyte. 
In ascending a mountain, I have frequently noticed young aspirants despise 
the easy winding way, and scale the steepest ascent, laughing at the timidity of 
their friends. But they seldom gained any thing thereby. Their companions, 
beguiling the way by observation and remark, reached the top almost without 
experiencing fatigue, while the undaunted scalers of the precipices, panting and 
tired, had but just out-stripped their friends, who had enjoyed an excursion which 
the former had converted into a trial of skill only to harass and distress themselves, 
without any concomitant benefit. And so in science, those who take the 
roughest track, and would fain think nothing of those who may prefer an easier 
path, may after all meet on the same height those who with humbler appliances 
had yet, by determined perseverance, continued looking upward, and marching on 
in the same direction. 
Dryadville Cottage , near Worcester , 
April 20, 1838. 
This is an excellent remark, and one of practical importance.—E d. 
