Excerpt from The Massachusetts Teacher, 1850, Vol. 3

The study of the natural methods of classification and more extensive investigations of complicated phenomena, the use of the microscope and dissecting apparatus, may be introduced at a later period, but, unless children be prepared for this higher study, unless they acquire a certain familiarity with the exter nal relations of Minerals, Plants and Animals, it will be as im podble to instruct them further in the higher branches of these Sciences, as it would be to teach mathematical astronomy or nat ural philosophy to those who had never learned to add and sub tract figures, or to obtain the simplest written statement from those who had never learned their A B C.

This elementary study should be substantial, and should consist in the illustration of material objects, the properties, forms and characters of which, might be explained, even by those who are not yet familiar with the subject, but who, from a more mature development of their intelligence should always be prepared to describe correctly, what is brought before them. The facility with which we can call the attention of children to phenomena with which we ourselves are but slightly familiar, without giving full explanations of what is seen, shows the ease with which such elementary instruction in Natural History might be introduced in all schools by every intelligent teacher. There can be, there fore, no objection to such a plan, on the ground of the difficulty of the subject, and perhaps some details about the plan to be pursued, will convince the most incredulous.

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