nal world. Other animals may surpass him in the delicacy of a single sense; but when you group the senses, and consider their perfection and power of improvement in man, he rises at once not only to the head of the list, but so far above all others as to fit his body to be the instrument of a higher nature, which they do not possess; yea, to become the very temple of the living God. This higher nature is so grand, it has been so apparent in all ages, it is so completely the substratum of religion and philosophy, it is such a grand field for speculation, and is so deservedly prominent in all schemes of education, that it has too often been forgotten that this God-like nature is in this world joined to an animal body; that the external world was made to minister to the gratification and improvement of this higher nature only through the senses, which are the property, the sole property, of the body; that the highest mental growth and enjoyment are thus in this world joined to or dependent upon the perfection of this animal body in all its relations to the external world; and that what God has thus joined together man cannot put asunder. Certain it is, that all attempts on his part to do so will be followed by a double punishnent on mind and body both.

Seal up all your senses now, and what would you become? or, to go further, suppose a child born with perfect intellect, but without a single sense

through which the external world could wake that intellect to action. It would remain a mere spark — how insignificant compared with that same intellect united to a body with all the senses perfect, through which this world could pour in its impressions, to call out its emotions, and excite to intellectual action -these heavens with their garniture of stars; this earth with its thousands of beauteous forms, its mantle of white and robe of green changed as the great celestial pendulum oscillates from side to side; and the varied sights and sounds that are forever calling that mind to action! When fifty years have passed away, compare those minds, and they shall

differ, not as one star differeth from another star in glory, but as the first ray of light in the east compared with the noonday sun shining in his strength. If, then, the material world is the means which God has appointed to first arouse the mind of man to action, and the only foundation for the highest processes of thought in the boundless field of mental speculation, and if it is only through the senses that this outward world can reach the mind, to excite its action, or furnish it with materials, we see at once the importance that these senses should be rightly trained, that they may do their appropriate work most rapidly and surely. Here, then, we have in a sentence the great work of natural history in education. Its first great work is to educate the senses,

through which we communicate with the external world, and by which it alone can excite the mind to action. In the delicacy of the senses, and their degree of perfection, men differ naturally, as they do in respect to all their other bodily powers. It is apparent to all, that as one is born crippled in hand or foot, so another may be born blind or deaf. Where one of the senses is entirely wanting, it is soon found out. But if all the senses exist, even in a defective state, their perfection is seldom if ever noticed, because they cannot be seen like a deformed limb, and their possessor, never having had any better, is not conscious of his want. But as men differ in the strength and perfection of their bodies by nature, much more do they differ in the power and perfection of their senses. And as a limb, or all the limbs, can become weakened by want of action, or strengthened by exercise, so in a greater degree can the senses be weakened, or educated and developed. We know what wonders the trained acrobat can perform; greater wonders can be performed by the trained senses of a Werner or an Agassiz. There is something more in sight than to keep us from stumbling over stones; something more in hearing than to listen to the roar of thunder or idle gossip; something more in all the senses than the power of ministering to our common wants and animal gratifications, however important these may be. There

is many a man, who thinks he has all his senses in perfection, and claims to be educated, in respect to whom the same language might be used in regard to the external world that our Saviour used respecting the Jews when describing their moral state: "Having eyes they see not, having ears they hear not, neither do they understand." The cause is apparent to every observer. In childhood the mind is active; every sense is upon the alert, and exercised to the full extent of its original power. It takes but a few years for the child to exhaust by its questions all that its parents know of natural objects, and all that its teachers know, if it dares to ask a question at all. It soon finds itself asking questions respecting the birds and plants, and every object in nature, for which no answer can be obtaimed. With childlike faith in the boundlessness of its parents' and teachers' acquirements, it supposes it has reached the limit of human knowledge, and stops at the very moment when the greatest progress and profit are possible. The senses become dull from want of exercise; or, if they receive impressions, these impressions awaken no thought and no interest, because it is taken for granted that these things are and must be unknown, unsolved mysteries. And thus, before the boy becomes a man, he lives among the thousands of objects that daily meet his vision, as unmoved and uninquiring as the herds and flocks that

roam over the pastures. His fullest creed in natural history is embraced in these two dogmas, that frogs and turtles rain down, and that bears grow fat in winter by sucking their paws !

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From this disuse there comes to be a mental anchy losis or stiffening of the perceptive faculties, if I so speak. This state could never come on if the natural curiosity of the child were daily gratified; and when it has come on, it can only be broken up by carrying the pupil back to the very point where he ceased to ask questions because no answers were given; to awaken if possible the same laudable curiosity he had when a child, and keep that alive by opening to him new wonders in the objects always around him, but hitherto unnoticed. A great philosopher has said that the kingdom of nature, like the kingdom of heaven, can only be entered by those who have the spirit of little children. Not only is this true in reference to a teachable spirit, but in natural history especially true, in the activity of the senses and that curiosity that seeks knowledge from every sensible object. How wonderfully the study of natural history does this, those only can fully understand who have led their pupils through the kingdoms of nature with power, by the true teacher's knowledge and enthusiasm, to open the blind eyes and unstop the deaf ears. Those who have done this know with what delight the new crystals, birds