Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1880 — Sclence for Children. [ARTICLE]

Sclence for Children.

an exhaostless source of daily entertainment at command It fa a most eCretivt of mischfatffi active, m-iuinagboy, being perpetually on the lookout for somotoTng to do and to eqjoy, falls many times into folly and trouble just for the want of the proper sort of employment* for It*fa notright that he should be at work all the time, or made to feel that he is under serious supervision. -He must have tome portion of each day in his growing life for free plsy and independent leisure. How if bis mind has been directed to a study of nature in any of her forms, he has a field of action in which he can exercise his faculties in the happiest manner. Without being cooscuras that he is accomplishing anything beyond having a jolly good time, be fa acquiring habits of keen and accurate observation that will be invaluable in any calling in alter life, and is laying up stores of delightful and ussfiil information. Provide the children, therefore, with suitable appliances and start them in the study of the fauna, flora and geology of the neighborhood. It will cost no more to equip them with a tin case for collecting flowers add a magnifying glass for analyzing them, with an opera or field glass for observing minute or distant birds, with a net and other apparatus for catching and preserving butterflies and beetles, and with a few elementary text books in natural science, than it does to bay the multifarious toys which every parent expects to bestow upon his growing family. The expense of a velocipede is as great as that of a whole list of sdentific apparatus, and does not furnish a tithe of the amusement which a child will soon find in experiments and observations connected with the study of nature; and when the moral as well as mental influences of the latter occupation are considered, there fa no question but it is the cheapest and safest form of amusement, and the most valuable adjunct of education, which can be provided for ehildrer. Our public schools lay the foundations for an intelligent understanding of neimal science, bat parents should carry tlio r’-’ik further, and stimulate a fondness A. ' y sending their little ones ont to take pt cl ical lessons directly from nature.