UTILITY OF BOTANY.

FIG. 19.

41

The Icosandrous plants, or such as have an indefinite number of stamens attached to the calyx, are remarkable for their fidelity to this law. They are all edible, and are represented by the apple and pear tribes, the cherry, the strawberry, &c.

There is also another great family the the grasses, the members of which exceed those of any other class, in number and in their essential importance to the whole animal creation. This family comprehends the grasses, commonly so called the wheat, oat, barley, rye, &c., of our temperate climate, and the sugar canes of tropi

cal regions; and all possess the common properties of being nutritious and healthful. During Lord Anson's voyages, on the failure of provisions, the mariners landed and found vegetables, which, although unknown, were recognised as belonging to this great family, and proved to be highly beneficial.

But while the value of this law is indisputable, a further knowledge of Botany is necessary to the traveller; since he will frequently find associated together edible and poisonous plants. Thus, the deadly Upas tree is placed with the delicious fig. The magnificent Euphorbias of tropical forests yield, on the one hand, the refreshing juice of the E. Balsamifera of the Canaries, and the Yuca Dulce, the nutritious farinaceous meal of Mexico; and, on the other, furnish to the warlike inhabitants of Ethiopia the poisonous juices in which they dip their arrows.

The splendid Cactuses, also, produce the delicious milk of the Hya-hya, in British Guiana, and that of the Cow tree in Ceylon, and also furnish the strychnine of medicine, and the far-famed wouralie poison of the banks of the Orinoco. Lastly, it frequently happens that, while one part of the plant yields an article of food, another is laden with noxious properties. Thus, if the starch furnished by the Euphorbias and Cactuses were eaten before the juices of the plants were expelled, speedy death would ensue ; and, as a more familiar example, the tubers of the potatoe plant form a valuable article of diet, while its green-coloured fruit is poisonous.

42

LESSONS TAUGHT BY GEOLOGY.

Geology. Geology, again, is no longer a merely curious speculation. On the contrary, it is one of the sciences which most surely leads to practical results. It has methodised the crust of the earth, and taught us to look for certain minerals almost as we look for certain books upon certain shelves of a library. Coal is nowhere found but in the coal-measures; and a knowledge of the position of the coal or ironstone strata, and of the rocks usually associated with them, has guided the capitalist to the spot where he might engage in the search for these products with the least chance of disappointment; and, in many instances, had the directions of Science been

FIG. 20.

1. Old Red Sandstone. 2. Mountain Limestone. 3. Millstone Grit. 4. Coal Measures. Red Sandstone. 6. Lias. 7. Superior

5. New

Oolite.

declared the futility of the attempts.

sought and followed, vast sums would have been saved to the community.

Deceived by appearances, or misled by designing individuals, persons have sought coal at a great expense in the wealden formation of Sussex, the oolites of Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire, and among the silurians of Radnorshire; whereas attention to the simplest principles of Geology would have shown the folly of such attempts. Because Pennsylvania is rich in coal, it was imagined, in the neighbouring state of New York, that the precious gift might also be found there; and the resemblance of certain silurian rocks, on the banks of the Hudson, to the bituminous shales of the true coal formation, appeared to sanction the surmise. Accordingly, mining adventurers squandered away a large amount of capital; until Geology, at the invitation of the Legislature, authoritatively

Our cut exhibits a section of the Great Bristol Coal-field, extending from the Mendip Hills to the north-west of Bath, a distance of about twenty miles.

OBJECT AND EFFECTS OF EDUCATION.

43

Arrangement of Knowledge. Besides the Sciences and the Liberal Arts, which last will obtain a due share of our attention, there are, among the subjects of human knowledge, the Arts and Manufactures, which contribute to the couvenience and comfort of life; and which may be classed under the general head of Social Economy.

The various branches of knowledge of a practical kind connect themselves with corresponding branches of Science. Some arts are mechanical; some chemical; some physiological, and some purely intellectual. In all these departments there are practical branches of knowledge which deserve the attention of every one who desires to be accounted libérally educated; while there are others too technical to admit of any proficiency except on the part of those who devote their lives to the pursuit. Arts of this latter description will not enter into our plan; but, in other respects, we shall exclude no brauch of study which belongs to the education of an accomplished citizen.

It is thus seen that the mode in which we design to treat our subjects is such as best conduces to exercise and improve the human faculties, and to open and expand the mind.

Uses of Knowledge.-The acquisition of knowledge has two great objects; namely, to obtain information for its own sake-that is, for the sake of the uses to which that information may be applied; and also, by the varied exercise of apprehension, memory, reasoning, judgment, and other powers of the intellect, to render those faculties available for the purposes, however great, in which, one time or • other, a man's position in life may require their utmost service.

The effect of education upon the individual is easily understood. It makes him what he actually is, as respects the particular stores of knowledge he possesses, and the command of mind which he can bring to bear on every crisis of his life. But man in society does not stand insulated, either as respects his knowledge or his powers of exertion. Every man possessed of knowledge and of ability, natural or acquired, sheds around him gifts of incalculable value. He is a centre or focus from which light is diffused on every side. A person who is himself uneducated, by living among those who are educated, obtains no small share of the advantages which they possess. He picks up fragments of their knowledge; but by far the greatest of his gains arises from the circumstance that, by the imitative power with which our species is so largely gifted, he catches the spirit of the acquired modes of thinking possessed by those around him; so that, although his knowledge may remain rude and disjointed, he begins to think like one who has received a liberal education. Thus, like charity, knowledge carries with it a double blessing-blessing him that offers, and him that receives.

44 OBJECT AND EFFECTS OF EDUCATION.

Perhaps no people as a body ever cxceeded the Athenians in acuteness. This we may justly infer from the style of the orations addressed to them, particularly from the stern, direct character of those of Demosthenes. To the immediate education of the Athenian youth no very great attention appears to have been paid. We are told that their first instruction was in swimming and the rudiments of literature. As for those whose abilities were but mean, they were to learn husbandry, manufactures, and trades. Those who could afford the education of a gentleman were to learn to play upon musical instruments, to ride, to study philosophy, to hunt, and practise gymnastics. Whence, then, did the Athenians as a body acquire that reputation for acuteness, for which, undoubtedly, they were pre-eminent? The portion of the people to which this character applied, probably at no period exceeded thirty thousand, if, indeed, that be not too high an estimate; since it only excludes the servants and bondmen, by far the most considerable proportion of the inhabitants, and makes allowance for about ten thousand foreigners, who were permitted to listen, but not to take part in public affairs, or in public amusements.

The signal acuteness of the Athenians arose, unquestionably, not from any remarkable superiority in their early education, but from the public life which they lived, continually listening, in their public assemblies and courts of justice, to orators; in the schools of philosophy, to discourses on human nature rather than on physical science; and in the theatres, to the unrivalled dramas of their tragedians and comic writers. Thus an Athenian, when Athens was at the height of its fame, could not be otherwise than acute. He took part in the deliberations regarding public affairs; he was present whenever instruction or amusement was going forward; and, if war arose, he fought,—sometimes by sea, sometimes by land. He had occasion for no language but his own; his instruction was chiefly oral; he required no books but those written almost in his own time; and he could not but know his own language in all its minuteness and shades of meaning. He was a statesman, a legislator, a lawyer, a soldier, a philosopher, and a man of taste; he was therefore master of all the technicalities which had as yet arisen in the language; and nothing could be spoken of, or even hinted at, which he did not at once perceive and understand.

How different is the case in modern times! How much more must be learned to be on a level with the age than was necessary in Athens ! At Athens the knowledge and acuteness by which an accomplished citizen was distinguished, came to him as easily as an acquaintance with town life now comes to those hopeful scions who spend their nights and days in the metropolitan streets.

G. L. SIMMONS MEDICAL LIBRARY

EDUCATION DESTROYS DELUSION.

45

We cite the superior acuteness of the Athenians to illustrate the effect of the spread of intelligence from mind to mind, by which the improvement of a small proportion of the population becomes a sort of leaven to the whole mass, which, under favourable circumstances, may quickly become similarly affected. But the history of the Athenian people affords us another lesson, by showing how much the world has changed since their time, and how much more laborious is now the task of acquiring knowledge, and a character for intelligence and acuteness; for, in our day, owing to the rapid extension of new departments of knowledge, and the consequent increase of new terms, there is no longer that general acquaintance with the meaning of words which prevailed among the ancient inhabitants of Athens.

Popular Errors. - We admit that, in the course of time, society, merely by having included within it a small sprinkling of persons imbued with exact knowledge, has come to think correctly upon a great number of subjects, on which formerly the grossest errors prevailed. But this very circumstance affords the strongest inducement to promote education, with the utmost speed, through every rank of the community. There are still many evils more or less latently devastating the social fabric, which an improved state of knowledge, and the consequent more exact mode of thinking, would go far to correct. It is an undeniable fact, that within the last two or three hundred years a vast amount of positive delusion, by which the human faculties, moral and intellectual, were for ages kept in thraldom, has almost wholly disappeared from western Europe. Now, if men in general no longer seek to discover the coming incidents of a man's life, or distant events in the history of a people, by studying the course of the stars or to prefigure the future in the direction of a thunder-clap, or in a shower of stones from the air, or in the flight of a bird, or in some peculiarity of an animal's entrails,—and that less from any profound or widely-diffused knowledge bearing on such subjects, than from a more exact mode of thinking on the course of nature derived from the increasing, though still small proportion of educated minds influencing society-surely there is ground to anticipate that many of the evils still left behind-the fruits of ignorance and unsound thinking-would be eradicated by the general diffusion of education throughout the masses of the community.

Ignorance of Natural Laws. How slight is the knowledge of the laws of nature, which for the last two or three hundred years has fallen to the lot of each individual, even among the educated orders of society! And yet that mere sprinkling of knowledge in such sciences as Astronomy, Meteorology, Natural History, and