Now that the
wonders of the invisible world are closed, the little ones can have no
better set-off than in the beauty and marvel of God's visible creation.
Here also are food for the imagination and material for poetry.
Whatever teaches a child to observe teaches him to think, and
strengthens memory, a faculty which in fitting conjunction is
cumulative genius.
We dislike the science that is sometimes forced down youthful throats
by the Mrs. Squeerses of polite learning, a vile compound of treacle
and brimstone; but there is a vast difference between science as dead
fact and science as living poetry,--the harvest of the child's own
eyes, gathered on seashores and hillsides, in fields and lanes. We like
the aim and tendency of this little book, because it is likely to draw
children away from hooks, and to entice them into that admirably
ventilated schoolroom of out-doors which will give them sound lungs and
stomachs and muscular limbs. It teaches them, too, without their
knowing it; which is the only true way; for they contrive to make their
minds duck's-backs, under the assiduous watering-pot of instruction.
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