That is what I understand by scientific education.  To furnish a boy with such an education, it is by no means necessary that he should devote his whole school existence to physical science:  in fact, no one would lament so one-sided a proceeding more than I. Nay more, it is not necessary for him to give up more than a moderate share of his time to such studies, if they be properly selected and arranged, and if he be trained in them in a fitting manner.

I conceive the proper course to be somewhat as follows.  To begin with, let every child be instructed in those general views of the phenomena of Nature for which we have no exact English name.  The nearest approximation to a name for what I mean, which we possess, is “physical geography.”  The Germans have a better, “Erdkunde,” ("earth knowledge” or “geology” in its etymological sense,) that is to say, a general knowledge of the earth, and what is on it, in it, and about it.  If any one who has had experience of the ways of young children will call to mind their questions, he will find that so far as they can be put into any scientific category, they come under this head of “Erdkunde.”  The child asks, “What is the moon, and why does it shine?” “What is this water, and where does it run?” “What is the wind?” “What makes the waves in the sea?” “Where does this animal live, and what is the use of that plant?” And if not snubbed and stunted by being told not to ask foolish questions, there is no limit to the intellectual craving of a young child; nor any bounds to the slow, but solid, accretion of knowledge and development of the thinking faculty in this way.  To all such questions, answers which are necessarily incomplete, though true as far as they go, may be given by any teacher whose ideas represent real knowledge and not mere book learning; and a panoramic view of Nature, accompanied by a strong infusion of the scientific habit of mind, may thus be placed within the reach of every child of nine or ten.

After this preliminary opening of the eyes to the great spectacle of the daily progress of Nature, as the reasoning faculties of the child grow, and he becomes familiar with the use of the tools of knowledge—­reading, writing, and elementary mathematics—­he should pass on to what is, in the more strict sense, physical science.  Now there are two kinds of physical science:  the one regards form and the relation of forms to one another; the other deals with causes and effects.  In many of what we term our sciences, these two kinds are mixed up together; but systematic botany is a pure example of the former kind, and physics of the latter kind, of science.  Every educational advantage which training in physical science can give is obtainable from the proper study of these two; and I should be contented, for the present, if they, added to our “Erdkunde,” furnished the whole of the scientific curriculum of schools.  Indeed I conceive it would be one of the greatest boons which could be conferred upon England, if henceforward every child in the country were instructed in the general knowledge of the things about it, in the elements of physics, and of botany.  But I should be still better pleased if there could be added somewhat of chemistry, and an elementary acquaintance with human physiology.