should shut our eyes and stop our ears, and petrify our hearts? Poor Julia Brace and Laura Bridgman, who have been deaf, dumb and blind from birth, have an apology for their ignorance of the works of GOD; but, for us, whose heads are all planted over with the hungry inlets of knowledge, there is no excuse for dooming ourselves to their condition:

'OH! how canst thou renounce the boundless store

Of charms, which Nature to her votary yields!
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields,

All that the genial ray of morning gilds,

And all that echoes to the song of even,

All that the sheltering mountain's bosom shields,

And all the dread magnificence of heaven,

Oh! how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven!'

It cannot be doubted that the proper study of nature begets devout affections; and this truth has given rise to the common maxim, 'that a true naturalist cannot be a bad man.' God's works do appeal strongly to our higher natures; and may we not lay it down as an axiom, that from the radiant page of creation are to be read the first lessons of beauty and sublimity? When our first parents opened their eyes upon Paradise they saw beauty; and when they walked its fields in innocence they felt sublimity. The young, and pure, and trusting spirit is ever thus in harmony with the universe; and the study of natural history will keep it in the blest communion. The fresh and docile heart takes to nature as instinctively as the grazing animal takes to the field, or the web-footed fowl to the sea. These tendencies have been forcibly arrested in our children by the same unnatural process by which some grazing animals are never allowed to see a pasture, and some web-footed fowls are cooped up for life in a dry pen. Children have been so forcibly crowded into the narrow and artificial paths made by men, that the wide and cheerful paths of nature have been untrodden. Only give natural history its fair chance among the studies of youth, and we are confident it will become one of the most grateful and efficient of the formative powers in education. The boy who desires to have his miniature garden, his faithful dog, and his hive of bees; and his sister, who must have her plat of flowers, her dear Canary and her golden fish, do both show the common taste of the human heart to hold communion with nature. Human taste is a creation of GoD, and that taste finds its objects in the kindred works of Gon; that mind therefore which is in harmony with nature, dwells in the Divine idea. Such a mind feels that it gravitates toward the great spiritual centre, and rejoices in its oneness with the Infinite.

We close this part of our subject with an inference. In the beginning GoD created the heavens and the earth' He looked upon the works of his hand and pronounced them GOOD. By the study of these works we seem to look at creation from the same angle at which the Deity looked at it, and we then understandingly join Him in his decision of approval; and we infer, that from the very constitution of the human mind, and the nature of the human heart, there cannot come to the mind these thoughts, nor to the heart these emotions, without expanding the one and elevating the other.

III. If then it be true that the study of natural history will help

to unfold the reasoning powers and to elevate the pious affections, the only remaining question is, how can this study be introduced into our seminaries of learning?

We answer, by making their presidents, guardians and teachers feel the force of the truths now stated. As soon as they are persuaded of them they cannot hesitate. We cannot hesitate to become fellow-workers with that great TEACHER, whose lessons are written all over the world in letters of light, and whose blessing descends upon youth as his dew distils on the opening flower.

Many governors of literary, scientific and educational establishments have said to us, 'We should like to make natural history a regular study in our seminary, but we have no proper books.' In botany, chemistry, and geology, there are excellent manuals; and the two works of Professor Edwards and Mr. Wyatt, at the head of this article, show that zoology has not been overlooked. The first lessons in zoology by the distinguished French savan were prepared by him many years ago. He has since given an extended work on the same subject, illustrated with valuable anatomical drawings. His fame and success drew upon him the attention of the French Government, and he has lately furnished at their request, a treatise on zoology superior to any that preceded it. Out of the abounding good-will of this excellent scholar, he offered a copy of all the plates of his last work to the writer of this article, who now has them for the illustration of a work on zoology, preparing under the guidance of his learned friend. With a microscopic eye to examine particulars, and a telescopic one to look at groups, the French philosophers have laid all succeeding ages under obligations to them. The philosophic rigor of their classifications, based on actual dissections, is a glory to science. Among those who have devoted their chief strength to the lucidus ordo, we find M. Lemmonnier, whose work Mr. Wyatt has translated; and here we must express our regret that the author has not enlarged and simplified the treatise, so as to render it accessible to youth. If better books are needed in some departments of natural history, we trust that scholars will appear ready and willing to furnish the necessary manuals. All will be welcome to this field of labor, and the more that enter it the better. The series of class-books on zoology now preparing will soon appear to take their modest place by the side of others, and do their humble part in the great enterprise. We know of no better way for naturalists to bring this subject before the proper authorities. We are sure that all such efforts will be viewed with candor; and that there are many who will kindly overlook some defects in execution, while they generously patronize the noble object that such contributions are designed to assist. Especially to the American Institute of Instruction,' and to the Natural History Societies, may the friends of this science look with confidence, assured of aid in every plan that promises an upward step in the means of elementary instruction.

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Having thus answered, as our limits would allow, the three questions proposed, we add a few remarks, somewhat inferential.

The study of natural history is happily free from all parties in politics and sects in religion; thus giving the freest exercise to all our

powers, without the interference of any narrowing prejudice or conventional aim.

It is a study particularly fitted to our country, where the means of verifying the leading principles are within the reach of every village. If this science should become a fixed study in all our normal schools and academies, as it undoubtedly will in all our colleges, it will be advisable to make collections of specimens, and have them deposited where all the pupils can have the freest access to them. We have seen some of the high schools in Massachusetts which have gathered many interesting specimens; and as every region has some peculiarities in its mineral, vegetable and animal domains, it would become a most easy, useful and agreeable exercise for students to collect and arrange what they find about them. After a few years the system of exchanges, so common in Europe, would get into operation, and then the science would become a new bond of fellowship between separated but congenial minds. If a microscope could be added to such a collection, so much the better; and if an itinerant lecturer, or school missionary, would take this science among his other subjects for awakening young minds to reflection, and young hearts to piety, so much the better still.

Among the incidental advantages attendant on this pursuit, we trust we may reckon this, that it will put an end definitely and forever to that whole system of murder and cruelty that is visited on the harmless races of animals, be they quadrupeds, birds or insects.

May we not count the promotion of health as among its benefactions? It brings its votary into the open air, and prompts to those muscular exercises out of which come growth and strength. How many domestic prison-doors in America would it be a blessing thus to open!

It is profitable to the purse too; for it belongs to that skill which has taught how to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew before. It instructs how to improve the races of animals, so as to give us better clothing and sweeter food; while it reveals how to arrest most effectually the ravages of those insects which destroy our crops, and those worms which scuttle our ships. In short, its botany and chemistry have uncounted wealth yet in store for some future Linnæus and Davy, as its geology and zoology have for some future Cuvier.

There is another incidental advantage. Some minds have a bias toward valuing chiefly all deviations from nature, considering those productions alone as curious and interesting which break through her laws and mar her beauty. Now the study of natural history takes off the eye from these aberrations from the prevalent wisdom and harmony of nature's works, in order to fix them upon the oft-repeated and all-surrounding proofs of completeness and perfection.

Some will grant there is yet another good in its protective power over the mind. Now-a-days we are surrounded with miraculous claims to supernatural nonsense; and we know of no study so curative of these thick-crowding absurdities as that of nature; and the more that natural science is studied, the less will impostors prevail. Ghosts are terribly afraid of day-light. Natural science, more than any other study, steadies the mind. Its truths once acquired are not like those vaporous theories that watch their occasions to vanish from the thoughts; but they are

substantial facts, and like our household friends are ever presenting their faces for grateful recognition. It is not among the least attractions of our favorite study that its truths are easily remembered.

Is the science we recommend isolated, or does it accord with our social instincts? It seems to us that every thing pertaining to it is dif fusive and social. In this business of science, we are all indebted to the parent minds that have preceded us; but their legacies have descended to the world generally, and not to heirs and assigns that can be named only in the will of the testator. Nature's largess is universal and irrespective. Natural science brings all classes and conditions together. There is no monopoly, there is no solitude; because the natural philosopher is addressed continually by many living voices; voices not of reproach, not of scorn, not of defiance, not of discouragement, but voices of endearment, of invitation, of trust and of hope. It is eminently a social study. Man's heart answers to nature, and nature answers to man's heart. They were both made by the same BEING, and made for each other. The mind thus instinctively forms a friendship with the nature, which is crowding about our path, and which is asking for communion and copartnership. Is there not a sympathy between the wide and winning lessons of creation and the open, asking spirit of childhood? Lord Bacon says: He that would enter the kingdom of nature must enter it as the christian does the kingdom of heaven, in the capacity of a little child.' No sentiment can be truer than this. Docility, thirst for exact knowledge, and love of truth; these are the beautiful attributes of childhood, and they accord harmoniously with the teachings of

nature.

Allow us, then, in strongest urgency, to recommend the introduction of natural history as a regular classic into all our normal schools and academies, and especially into those institutions whose aim it is to unfold harmoniously all the faculties of man. We cannot but think that this science would be a welcome substitute in many schools for the history of national wars, the debates of angry politicians, the sublimities of rhetoric, and the mazes of grammar. We are sure that pupils will find its study both head-work and heart-work. It brings the reasoning powers into immediate contact with all the laws of matter, motion and life, while at the same time it brings the moral affections into communion with their universal harmonies. It leads us to see the works of GOD as they are, and then by irresistible consequence, to feel that they are very good.' It spreads out before us the proofs of a CREATOR, and then the reasons for our trust in His wisdom, power and love. How many therefore, are the pleasures of the naturalist! His are the satisfactions which flow from looking at nature from the divine point of observation, of seeing the relations man bears to the universe, of tracing the general adaptation, the all-pervading harmony and the sublime intent of the whole; and added to these, the joys of systematic and satisfactory thinking, of well-sinewed limbs, and a heart tuned to gladness. Permit us then to say, that when this study shall take the rank it deserves among our means of education, the rank it now holds in the best seminaries of Europe, that it will be found effective, above most others, in developing the intellectual and moral powers of youth.

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Of examples there are thousands; we content ourselves with one, and he is a host. Our own AUDUBON says of himself: When I had hardly yet learned to walk, and to articulate those first words, always so endearing to parents, the productions of nature that lay spread all around were constantly pointed out to me. They soon became my playmates; and before my ideas were sufficiently formed to enable me to estimate the difference between the azure tints of the sky and the emerald hue of the bright foliage, I felt that an intimacy with them, not consisting of friendship merely, but bordering on phrenzy, must accompany me through life; and now, more than ever, am I persuaded of the power of these early impressions. My father generally accompanied my steps, procured birds and flowers for me, with great eagerness pointed out the elegant movements of the former and the splendid attire of the latter. My valued preceptor would then speak of the departure and return of birds with the seasons, and would describe their haunts; and more wonderful than all, their change of livery; thus exciting me to study them, and to raise my mind toward their great CREATOR.'

THE ADVENT OF SPRING.

THE Seventh Ode of the Fourth Book of HORACE is appropriate to the season on which we have entered. In the following translation, an attempt has been made not only to express the sentiments, but also to adopt the metre of the original, as far as the construction of English verse would permit.