Page:The Daughters of England.djvu/68

Rh through life unacquainted with those wonderful combinations and properties, which in some of the most familiar things would throw light upon their real nature, and proper use; but also to remain unenlightened in that noblest school of knowledge, which teaches the sublime truth, that the wonder-working power of God has been employed upon all the familiar, as well as the astonishing objects we perceive; and that the same power continues to be exemplified in their perpetual creation, their order, adaptation, and use.

Chiefly, however, would I recommend to the attention of youth, an intimate acquaintance with the nature and habits of the animal world. Here we may find a source of rational and delightful interest, which can never fail us, so long as a bird is heard to sing upon the trees, or a butterfly is seen to sport among the flowers.

I will not go the length of recommending to my young countrywomen to become collectors, either of animals or of insects; because, as in the case of translations from the best of ancient writers, this has already been done for them, better than they are likely to do it for themselves; and because I am not quite sure, that simply for our own amusement, and without any reference to serving the purpose of science, we have a right to make even a beetle struggle to death upon the point of a pin, or to crowd together boxes full of living creatures, who, in the agony of their pent-up sufferings, devour and destroy one another.

Happily for us, there are ably written books on these subjects, from which we can learn more than from our own observation; and museums accessible to all, where different specimens of insects, and other animals, are so arranged as materially to assist in understanding their nature and classification; and far more congenial it surely must be to the heart and mind of woman, to read all which able and