Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/382

248 indifference; eager curiosity and enquiry are chilled by the present semi-barbarous systems of "education;" true, natural devotion choked and often uprooted by bigotry and fanaticism; and that glorious work of —reasonable and gifted, reduced to a mere mechanical automaton, progressing along life's ever-changeful, and, so often, beautiful path, without turning an eye to the right or left in observance of the wondrous works so lavishly spread around, and only intent on sweeping on, and accumulating a heap of rich dust, which may in a moment be scattered to the winds, and which he must at last leave behind. Fortunately for the rising generation the study of Natural History is become "fashionable," and heartily do I pray that to be natural in heart, mind, and feeling may become "fashionable" too.

But to return.——I would counsel every one, but especially the young, and of my own sex, never to suffer that poetry of childhood to be effaced from their hearts;—never to fancy, with ridiculous pride, "Oh! I am growing up now; I shall soon be a woman, and it is childish to gather daisies, and to run about the fields; I must walk straight along the turnpike road, look right before me, and be "lady-like!" Perhaps few say this; but many, many a young heart thinks it, and is taught to think it by teachers more ignorant than their victim pupils. Oh! for an educational revolution, or reform at least! which, however, could not well make my country rambles more erratic than they are, though it might give me the