The same rule may be applied to any subject or object.  Let us take another familiar illustration.  You wish to observe a building.  If you simply get a general perception of the building as a whole, you will be able to remember very little about it, except its general outlines, shape, size, color, etc.  And a description will prove to be very disappointing.  But if you have noted, in detail, the material used, the shape of the doors, chimney, roof, porches, decorations, trimmings, ornamentation, size and number of the window-panes etc., etc., the shape and angles of the roof, etc., you will have an intelligent idea of the building, in the place of a mere general outline or impression of such as might be acquired by an animal in passing.

We will conclude this lesson with an anecdote of the methods of that famous naturalist Agassiz, in his training of his pupils.  His pupils became renowned for their close powers of observation and perception, and their consequent ability to “think” about the things they had seen.  Many of them rose to eminent positions, and claimed that this was largely by reason of their careful training.

The tale runs that a new student presented himself to Agassiz one day, asking to be set to work.  The naturalist took a fish from a jar in which it had been preserved, and laying it before the young student bade him observe it carefully, and be ready to report upon what he had noticed about the fish.  The student was then left alone with the fish.  There was nothing especially interesting about that fish—­it was like many other fishes that he had seen before.  He noticed that it had fins and scales, and a mouth and eyes, yes, and a tail.  In a half hour he felt certain that he had observed all about that fish that there was to be perceived.  But the naturalist remained away.

The time rolled on, and the youth, having nothing else to do, began to grow restless and weary.  He started out to hunt up the teacher, but he failed to find him, and so had to return and gaze again at that wearisome fish.  Several hours had passed, and he knew but little more about the fish than he did in the first place.

He went out to lunch and when he returned it was still a case of watching the fish.  He felt disgusted and discouraged, and wished he had never come to Agassiz, whom, it seemed, was a stupid old man after all,—­one away behind the times.  Then, in order to kill time, he began to count the scales.  This completed he counted the spines of the fins.  Then he began to draw a picture of the fish.  In drawing the picture he noticed that the fish had no eyelids.  He thus made the discovery that as his teacher had expressed it often, in lectures, “a pencil is the best of eyes.”  Shortly after the teacher returned, and after ascertaining what the youth had observed, he left rather disappointed, telling the boy to keep on looking and maybe he would see something.