look, and what way to pursue. I have already in part shown how these difficulties may be overcome.

But the question to answer here is, whether knowledge of nature, and pleasure in it, are the exclusive privilege of the learned by profession; and, further, of that portion of them who have reached the highest point of learning? Are there not degrees in knowledge; and can not even the beginner find pleasure in the truth of that degree to which he has attained, if it be really truth? The teacher need not trouble himself about the 78,000 species of plants, nor the difficulty of classing the gramineous and umbelliferous plants. Let him take pleasure in his success, if his pupils have become acquainted with a few hundred characteristic plants, and have studied closely the growth of a few of them from their first sprouting to the ripening of their seeds. Similar principles are true in the other departments of natural history. Most of my scholars in mineralogy have been able to devote to it but one half-year. My task was, to determine what they could learn within this time-not half-way and dimly, but wholly, clearly, and surely; and thus I dared not fix my limit at too great a distance. Where I did fix it will hereafter appear. At present I will only say that my best pupils acquired a satisfactory acquaintance with the most important, simple, and clear species of minerals,* and a clear percep tion, derived from actual observation, of the consistent laws which prevail throughout them. It is a consideration which may console the teacher of natural science, for the low degree of knowledge reached by his pupils, that even the greatest masters, who have attained to the highest point of learning, have confessed, with ingenuous humility, how much was that of which they were ignorant.

IV. BEGINNING,

"We have but little solicitude," I think I hear some say, "for the more or less of knowledge of nature which our pupils shall attain, but much about our own ignorance where and how to begin instructing in it. For we are convinced that eminent men have fallen into error on this point."

The difficulty of adopting the right mode of beginning occurred to me when, twenty-five years ago, I undertook to give practical instruction in studying mountainous countries to the Prussian mining pupils; and induced me to write the following considerations upon the commencement of geognostic studies.

I will now state the method which, in my opinion, the student should follow.

*Such as fluor spar, lead glance, iron pyrites, garnet, &c.

†This is an expression which has a very different meaning in the mouth of the master and in that of the scholar.

The

He should first examine, in all directions, the neighborhood of his residence, and should make himself so thoroughly acquainted with it that he can call it up before his mind whenever he chooses. Such an acquaintance is the result of the unconscious and fresh pleasure which youth, joyful and free from scientific anxieties, will find for itself in such an examination, obtaining in this artless way a simple general impression of the vicinity, not forced upon him artificially by a teacher. He is not teased, while he is rejoicing in the blue heavens and the rapid motions of the clouds, in the oak woods and flowery meadows, where the butterflies play, by a professor with a kyanometer, to measure the blue of the sky with, nor by a recommendation not to stare into the woods, but rather to ascertain whether the oaks are Quercus robur or Quercus pedunculata; or, not to look at the flowers in the meadow all at once, as if they were a yellow carpet, but to take his Linnæus and determine the species of this ranunculus. No entomologist is setting him to chase butterflies and impale them. Neither is the youth, when inspired to devotion by the snowy Alps, glittering in moonlight, like so many spiritual, silvery forms of giants, annoyed by a geologist talking to him of granite, gneiss, and limestone, or of the junction and inclination of strata. young enjoy the heavens and the earth as a susceptible painter or an ingenuous poet does. In this first paradisaic pleasure is planted the seed of the perception of an intellectual world, whose secrets will not be fully ascertained and understood even after the longest and most active life of scientific effort. But most teachers, by the dispersion of these simple impressions of nature, forcibly destroy these earliest pleasures of children, the brightness of the imaginary world which they see. Even the great Pestalozzi falls into an error on this point, when he says that "It is not in the woods or meadows that the child should be put, to become acquainted with trees and plants. They do not there stand in the order best calculated to display the characters of the different families, &c." That is, we ought to take the child into a botanic garden, arranged on the Linnæan system, so that he may study plants in the order of their species. To me this seems like saying that the child ought not to hear a symphony, because that would be a mere chaos of sounds to him; he should rather have played to him, first, the first violin part, then the second, then the parts for the bass viols, the flutes, clarionets, trumpets, &c. It is true that in this way he would hear the separate parts, but not the bond of thought which makes them a symphony. Jahn was much more judicious in his gymnastic walks, when he said, not "we are going botanizing, geologizing, or entomologizing," but merely, “we are going to walk." How much more naturally do our youth, when the

bird-of-passage instinct seizes them at the university, wander through the father-land and rejoice in its grandeur, and lay it deeply to heart, without any idea of a premature, and painful, and usually repulsive studying of any particular subject. I hate this analyzing and lifeless elementarizing of the first youthful impressions of nature-this foolish, superficial, heartless, frivolous directing of the understanding prematurely out of its natural path-which is so sure to chill the youthful heart and render it old before its time. The utmost attainments of a mind thus trained must be- unless aided by remarkable natural qualities to observe with the bodily eye; to use the reason, but not with pleasure;. to derive mere lifeless ideas from creation; and to repre

⚫ sent the objects thus conceived in equally lifeless descriptions, like the ghastly wax figures which afford a repulsive imitation of living men.

There is, however, a mode of learning intelligently, which is not chilling, but thoroughly genial and appropriate. But, it should be observed, the mode of instruction just described has a diametrical opposite in that whose advocates despise the adult reason, and would constrain themselves to remain children always-to feel, and only to feel. Among these advocates are prominent the numerous disgusting, pitiful poetasters of our time, who undertake to deal with nature in so remarkably childlike a manner. Their false simplicity and innocence is to real childlike innocence what a French actress, who plays the smart chambermaid, is to a truly noble young damsel. He who feels himself a man should endeavor in manly wise to understand and represent nature with as deep poetic feeling, and as gigantic understanding, as that which Shakspeare used in delineating men and life. But I return to my subject.

If the first mental growth of the young is watched over in holy quiet, the results of the mode of training which I recommend, how prosaic soever they may appear, will not be prosaic. The recollection of youthful devotional premonitions will become a hope of realizing them, and will enliven, strengthen, and inspire every effort. After you have enjoyed the unmingled, complete, rich pleasure of a full symphony, you willingly undertake the wearisome labor of becoming familiar with each part of it; for each is to you not a dead thing, but a living portion of the whole symphony, whose collective remembrance lives in your soul. And if now, knowing all the separate parts, you hear the symphony again, you hear with pleasure both each separate part and the united sound of all; and your apprehension of the whole symphony, previously simple and obscure, develops and becomes clear.

In a similar manner the learner proceeds, from passively offering himself to receive impressions, from an artless susceptibility to the

collective impression produced by the locality examined, to an active effort to distinguish this impression into its component parts. The great compound picture of the district about him divides into innumerable little ones, of towns, men, animals, trees, flowers, and in like manner do the mountains-for instance, their minerals, and their structure. What has been said of the method of geognostic study, both of its rudiments and of its ultimate purpose, is applicable, as we shall see, to other branches of natural science.

V. SCIENCE AND ART.

"As the susceptible painter, the ingenuous poet, rejoice in the heavens and the earth, so does the youthful heart." And, I may add, the future geognosist. But, it will be asked, does this laborious and prosaic workman proceed from the same initial point of education as the passionate and delicate painter? I answer, decidedly, Yes; and, I add, other departments of art begin, in like manner, coincidently with other departments of science. If a boy loves flowers, he may become equally a botanist or a flower-painter. The celebrated painter of animals, Paul Potter, the author of "Reynard the Fox," as well as the great zoölogist, Cuvier, all, as boys, took delight in animals, and had an eye susceptible to them. A liking for beautiful mathematical bodies may characterize a future mineralogist, or mathematician, or architect. Susceptibility to colors indicates a future painter or a future optician; and an ear for music, either a musician or an acousticist. Nor do the different roads of the artists and naturalists, who proceed from the same point, ever become entirely separate. Michael Angelo was a great anatomist; Durer wrote on perspective, and on the relations of the human body; Otto Philip Runge constructed a theory of colors. Goethe sang of flowers, and wrote his valuable "Metamorphoses of Plants;" he had an eye seldom equaled for the beauty of mountains, and he both observed and described them in a masterly manner, according to their geognostic character. A man who is endowed with susceptibility to beauty, and the artist's power of representation, and also with clear and energetic thought, will produce scientific works containing beauty, and artistic works of profound thought. It is not only true that we find united, in extraordinary men, great capacity both for science and art, and that the first rudiments of scientific and artistic training are frequently the same, but we see that many arts need the aid of science, and many sciences of the arts. The architect must understand mechanics; the painter, perspective, anatomy, and the chemistry of colors: botany and zoology require good pictures of plants and animals; and mineralogy, clear and accurate drawings of crystals.

While the

Science seeks principally truth; but art, beauty. botanist endeavors to establish as correctly and completely as possible the idea of the species Rose, the painter tries to present his ideal of a Rosa centifolia; and the poet leads us, through the gardens of poetry, to roses of unimaginable beauty. While the Greek sculptor carved the Lions of St. Mark, Cuvier gave us an excellent description of the king of beasts. From the school of Werner came scientific works on mineralogy and mining, and likewise the miners' songs of Novalis.

I have lengthened this discussion, in order to bring out a pedagogical rule to which I have already referred in speaking of teaching geognosy. It is, to have constant reference, not only at the beginning but throughout all the course of instruction in natural science, to the beauty of God's works; to cultivate the pupils' susceptibility to this beauty; and to develop, along with the receptive faculty, however directed, the power of representing as perfectly as possible the thing seen so that, for example, the boys shall learn not only to examine and recognize plants and crystals but to draw them. It is more necessary to refer to this, because the beauty of which I speak is so wholly indifferent to so many teachers. They make no endeavor to learn whether their pupils take such pleasure in flowers, and examine them with the same penetrating attention that a flowerpainter uses. They rather make their tyros analyze them, pull them to pieces, physically and mentally count their anthers and pistils, &c. Before the boys have even gained a thorough and familiar idea of the flower, they are made to endeavor to get an idea of its species in this destructive manner.

Especial haste is used, in those departments of natural science which are based on mathematics, in proceeding from observation by the senses to abstract mathematical theory. It is no wonder that this is the case in our day, when atomistics and mechanics, in a mathematical form, are every where forcing themselves forward, and where so many are seeking after mere bare truth only, without any reference. at all to beauty.

VI.

MATHEMATICAL AND ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN NATURAL SCIENCE.

Mathematics are the root and blood of a knowledge of the laws of nature and of art.* It reveals the laws of crystallization and of chemical unions; the number of petals and of anthers; the figure, size, and motions of the stars. It is the soul of the firmness of mighty cathedrals, of harmony in music; it gives the painter proportion and

"The form was in the archetype before it was in the work; in the divine mind before it was in the creature."-Kepler, "Harmon, Mundi,” 1.