All our industries would cease were it
not for that information which men begin to acquire as they best may
after their education is said to be finished. And were it not for this
information that has been from age to age accumulated and spread by
unofficial means, these industries would never have existed. Had there
been no teaching but such as is given, in our public schools, England
would now be what it was in feudal times. That increasing acquaintance
with the laws of nature which has through successive ages enabled us to
subjugate nature to our needs, and in these days gives to the common
laborer comforts which a few centuries ago kings could not purchase, is
scarcely in any degree owed to the appointed means of instructing our
youth. The vital knowledge--that by which we have grown as a nation to
what we are, and which now underlies our whole existence--is a
knowledge that has got itself taught in nooks and corners, while the
ordained agencies for teaching have been mumbling little else but dead
formulas." Spencer, _Education_, pp. 44, 54.
Not only the specialists in natural science, whose interest and
enthusiasm are largely absorbed in these studies, but many other
energetic teachers are persuaded that the culture value of nature
studies is on a par with that of historical studies.
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