Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/817

Rh Appletons' Science Primers and Ginn & Co.'s Guides to Science Teaching are among the best. For more advanced standard books, the works of Dana, Le Conte, and Geikie in geology, of Dana and Brush in mineralogy, of Gray and Bessey in botany, of Packard and Huxley in zoölogy, of Huxley and Martin in physiology, of Remsen in chemistry, of Meyer and Wright and of Ganot in physics, of Newcomb and Young in astronomy, are among the best.

Better than books are the collections of a well-arranged museum if they are by good fortune accessible. If possible, use them with the children, not for the amusement of an idle hour, but as teachers speaking more directly from Nature's heart than books can do. Also better than books is contact with a living teacher and association with others interested in the same work. Such help may be sought with assurance that one will seldom fail of kindly welcome and of all possible assistance. The Agassiz Associations, whose president is Mr. Harlan H. Ballard, whose headquarters are at Pittsfield, Mass., will furnish any mother with the opportunity of putting herself in contact with workers in this field, and of getting invaluable aid and inspiration.

Thus far in this paper the benefit of the study of natural science to the child only has been considered. But what of the mother? Truly, what increases the well-being of the child must increase hers also; but is there no personal gain to her apart from her child? Will it be nothing to be introduced to Nature, and to become a welcome guest where one has been a comparative stranger? Will it be nothing to leave the artificial and conventional, where so many masks are worn, and make friends with Nature, who cares nothing about dress, income, or pedigree?

Few mothers have not felt the renewal of youth which comes when in the woods, on the mountain, by the shore; have not found their cares slipping insensibly from them when gazing into the depths of the sky, listening to the murmur of a brook, or inhaling the sweet breath of the summer wind. Let me assure these mothers that every step in the study of any natural science will open more wide the door through which Nature will pour such healing balm.

mother, tired with housekeeping, give your family simple, uncooked fruit for dessert; let puddings and pies go unmade, and give the time so saved to the pursuit of enduring pleasures; finish the little dress with a few less ruffles, and fashion for your child's mind a garment which can not fade or grow old; make fewer calls on your fashionable friends and more to the wood-lot, the open meadow, and the running brook; lay aside the latest novel, and go

 Read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God";