Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/111

 fluids into steam, or vapour, by the application of heat.Any thing damp is dried by?Evaporation. After the lapse of some days, the steam arising from a gravel walk, in a sunny aspect, and after a warm shower, is noticed; and the question is briskly putThe rain that is fallen on the path is turning into vapour:what is this called? The answer, if given correctly, at a distance of time, is likely to fix itself indelibly in the memory; and the next step, with an intelligent child, will not improbably be some spontaneous effort of generalization; as when a bottle of wine, brought from the cellar, is seen first to be bedewed, and then to dry, in the heated dining-roomIs not this tooevaporation? And this will lead further:Can nothing but water and liquids be evaporated?Yes, we might say a solid body, such as a lump of metal, or of brimstone, is evaporated, when it is converted into gas, by heat; but then we use another word, and call itsublimation.

Yet in all such incidental conveyances of particles of scientific information, we should keep clearly in view our real intention, which is by no means that of imparting a certain amount of scientific knowledge, at a certain age, for this is a point of no consequence;but we simply mean to make a commencement of intellectuality—to keep the mind in alliance with reason and nature; and if any thing further need be regardedto familiarize a little the terms and the facts of philosophy, so as to facilitate the arduous studies of a later period.

In truth, if this sort of desultory and yet well-directed initiation in science is constantly pursued, the more systematic instruction which must at length follow, may be the longer delayed; and meantime that fresh bloom of the faculties may be preserved, which is always more or less impaired by laborious studies.

A very slender apparatus of amusement is found to be enough, where children are accustomed, on the one hand,