REVIEWS. 
23 
knowledge in precise, perspicuous, and yet not formal terms. Unless the 
teacher be properly prepared, his youngest pupil will soon find him out, 
and think, though the words may not be uttered, 11 1 do see the bottom of 
Master Shallow.” Unless his language be clear, his pupils will be floun¬ 
dering in the mud, and sometimes stick fast, unable to go any further. 
But if the mode of teaching be varied according to the ages, capacities, 
and attainments of the pupils, the pleasure is great and the advantage 
permanent. 
Let us look at this subject a little more attentively. We hold that 
zoology may be adapted to persons of all ages, and may be rendered 
11 popular” to all. It has, we consider, an expansive principle. Like the 
genie in the Eastern tale, it may be shut up in the vase drawn by the 
fisherman from the sea ; or it may, like the same genie in a different con¬ 
dition, extend from the beach almost into the clouds above. How 
is this ? 
Let us take a happy, prattling child-one able to join in a little country 
stroll, and yet so young as to be still amenable to the regulations of the 
nursery. What does it seek to know ? Are not its questions about the 
swallow and the robin, the bee and the butterfly, the snail, the frog, and 
all the other common things around ? He wishes to know their habits 
and their modes of life, and all then’ wondrous instincts. So natural is 
this desire, that the American poet beautifully regards the acquisition of 
this knowledge as the forest education of his future hero 
“ Then the little Hiawatha 
Learned of every bird its language— 
Learned their names and all their secrets; 
How they built their nests in summer ; 
Where they hid themselves in winter : 
Talked with them whene’er he met them; 
Called them ‘Hiawatha’s Chickens.’ 
Of all beasts he learned the language— 
Learned their names and all their secrets; 
How the beavers built their lodges; 
Where the squirrels hid their acorns; 
How the reindeer ran so swiftly; 
Why the rabbit was so timid: 
Talked with them whene’er he met them; 
Called them ‘ Hiawatha’s Brothers.”’ 
Song of Hiawatha. — Longfellow. 
Let us now take as our companion a boy or girl, who numbers a few 
years more, and we shall find not only that they wish to know to what 
groups certain animals belong, but. also—what is not always so easy to 
answer—why they do so. In such cases the best way is to give the 
scientific term belonging to the class or order, and carefully explain what 
it means. To shrink too much from the use of scientific terms is a false 
