everything it finds all that can be said. Then when a fit age
has been reached, the means of preserving these plants, which have
become so interesting in virtue of the knowledge obtained of them, may
as a great favour be supplied; and eventually, as a still greater
favour, may also be supplied the apparatus needful for keeping the larvae
of our common butterflies and moths through their transformations--a
practice which, as we can personally testify, yields the highest
gratification; is continued with ardour for years; when joined with the
formation of an entomological collection, adds immense interest to
Saturday-afternoon rambles; and forms an admirable introduction to the
study of physiology.

We are quite prepared to hear from many that all this is throwing away
time and energy; and that children would be much better occupied in
writing their copies or learning their pence-tables, and so fitting
themselves for the business of life. We regret that such crude ideas of
what constitutes education, and such a narrow conception of utility,
should still be prevalent. Saying nothing on the need for a systematic
culture of the perceptions and the value of the practices above
inculcated as subserving that need, we are prepared to defend them even
on the score of the knowledge gained. If men are to be mere cits, mere
porers over ledgers, with no ideas beyond their trades--if it is well
that they should be as the cockney whose conception of rural pleasures
extends no further than sitting in a tea-garden smoking pipes and
drinking porter; or as the squire who thinks of woods as places for
shooting in, of uncultivated plants as nothing but weeds, and who
classifies animals into game, vermin, and stock--then indeed it is
needless to learn anything that does not directly help to replenish the
till and fill the larder. But if there is a more worthy aim for us than
to be drudges--if there are other uses in the things around than their
power to bring money--if there are higher faculties to be exercised than
acquisitive and sensual ones--if the pleasures which poetry and art and
science and philosophy can bring are of any moment; then is it desirable
that the instinctive inclination which every child shows to observe
natural beauties and investigate natural phenomena, should be
encouraged. But this gross utilitarianism which is content to come into
the world and quit it again without knowing what kind of a world it is
or what it contai