Excerpt from Nature Readers: Sea-Side and Way-Side

Unseen Universe have brought marvels of world-building within range of our narrower ken. Argyle in his Unity of Nature and Reign of Law and Primeval Man, interpreted mighty and far-reaching harmonies. Principal Sir William Dawson, in his Story of the Earth and Man, brings the successive geologic ages before us with the vivid ness of some master-painter. Darwin and Huxley, detailing experiments, have not scorned to come within the reach of the unlearned mind. In botany, the pleasing, enthusiastic, if often erroneous generalizations, of Grant Allen have their use and place beside the stronger works of Cooke, Gray, J aegar, Taylor, and others. Our Gray, taking a leading rank among systematic botanists, did not disdain to write for children How Plants Grow. No man has done more toward popularizing natural science than Rev. J. G. Wood in his numerous works. Kingsley, with his exquisite Eng lish, has given us Town Geology, and Tyndale has told us of Forms of Water. Buckland and Gosse have written what young and old have rejoiced to read. The elders have sat down with the juniors to revel in Arabella Buckley's fairy-land of Science and Life and Her Children, while Camille Flammarion has made doubly eloquent to us the midnight skies. It seems almost invidious to name a few out of the many authors who have written not merely technical books for study, but popular works on natural science, to be read on sea-shore and roadside, on a bench in the garden, or lying under orchard trees, or sitting in the woods with a brook purling at our feet. Mccook has made many insects our daily friends and teachers. Thompson, Mrs. Treat, and Olive T. Miller have made the birds not only the guests of our maples, but of our hearts.

The parent and teacher need no longer complain that they cannot find the information clearly given needed for replies to multitudinous hourly whys and hows the present age is prodigal to its children.

The Nature Readers have been written to direct the minds of our youth in their first studies to the pleasant ways of Natural Science. Their main object has been to cultivate the faculty of observation, awaken enthusiasm, and direct taste in noble lines.

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