The older children will take to microscopic work with amazing zest and ability if you give them a little encouragement. A child's microscope is a very inexpensive instrument, and boys who are afterwards going to study medicine or science will lay the foundations of real living knowledge if they are shown how to cut microscopic sections of ordinary flowers and examine them under the microscope. All great scientists began early, and it is just as easy to direct a boy's interests into this sort of work, which counts so much in after life, as it is to let him fritter his time away in futile things with no real lasting benefit.

There is no reason why the schoolgirl also should not be taught elementary science by the aid of a microscope. So many parents nowadays send their girls to college and educate them as well as the boys of the family that the old idea that the pursuit of knowledge was unwomanly has quite died out. One of the greatest living scientists, Madame Curie, is a woman. While it is easier to teach children Nature study - that is, elementary botany and zoology - than chemistry at home, the love of any science will awaken the desire to know more in an intelligent boy or girl.

A Study Of The Heavens

Those who are lucky enough to possess a telescope can fix it on a stand placed on a small table out of doors, and interest the children for hours by showing them the configuration of the moon, which the telescope will display with almost startling minuteness. The child will quite easily see the moons of Jupiter, the craters and mountain ranges of the moon, and on a starry night a little practical study of astronomy will do more than anything else to make a boy realise the wonders of the universe.

Science By The Sea

It you live by the sea the natural history of the shore will immediately appeal to the child who has been interested in science. Encourage him to make a collection of seaweeds, and divide them into different groups according to colour - red, green, or brown.

They can be arranged by the youngest child. The same thing is true of shell collecting, which the children can arrange in drawers or boxes, and name them from their natural history books, where all such information can be obtained. The water aquarium can very quickly be filled with sea anemones, water-fleas, and the tiny crabs which exist in such numbers in the pools at low water. By the aid of a jar and shrimp-ing-net, they can collect prawns, small fish, shrimps, mussels, and cockles, and keep them in pie-dishes at home. The observant child will very quickly realise that the green seaweeds give off oxygen, which can be seen coming up as little bubbles of air. For this reason the green seaweeds keep the water clear, and the dark seaweeds, if present in any mass, make it slimy and impure.

The Value to Health is not the least of the good results of teaching children science. For one thing, they spend long, delightful hours out of doors with their nets and jam-jars and pond dredgers. The days they spend in the fresh air collecting specimens give them health as well as pleasure. The enthusiasm and interest which the study of natural science arouses is a health stimulant, and just what the nervous child or neurotic boy or girl who is too introspective and moody requires. On wet days they can read their books and dry and arrange their specimens. The home-made cabinet will facilitate this enormously, but a great deal can be done with ordinary cardboard boxes, divided into sections for different things. The most expensive toy in the world cannot give children the same happiness and interest that Nature study, which costs practically nothing except a little trouble and the cost of a microscope and lens, will provide. And in encouraging interest you are laying the foundation of a real love of science, which may have far-reaching effects in after life for both boys and girls.

Studying plant and other life in the aquariums. A large glass jar or bowl will serve all necessary purposes, and can be replaced easily if broken

Studying plant and other life in the aquariums. A large glass jar or bowl will serve all necessary purposes, and can be replaced easily if broken

But the study of science also must include the subject of animals and animal life in the country. How few people realise the fascination which can be derived from common things! Take the life of the birds; for example, and study their habits and structure, their colour and song. It will quicken the intelligence of any child if the parent will take the trouble to teach a boy a few elementary facts, and buy him a natural history reader. Every boy at some period of his life collects birds' eggs; and so long as the child is told to take only one egg out of three or four, his collection will grow without harm or hurt to innocent life.

But if a boy collects at all, he should be made to do so systematically, methodically, and carefully as any scientist in a laboratory. Show him how to tabulate and write down the names of the eggs in a notebook. If the boy is old enough, he should be told to write a little history of the different types of birds, notes of their colour, song, and habits, and the size and colour of their eggs. He should watch for the first swallow, and note when the cuckoo comes and when it goes. Even a town boy. can spend his half-holidays in the country, observing, noting, collecting, storing knowledge which can never be lost. All the time the recreation is forming his character, developing his latent powers, and making him a man in the best sense of the word.

The boy who knows is not likely to be a prig, because true knowledge makes for humility, just as vanity is the outcome of ignorance. The study of science takes a boy out of himself, and supplies him with the healthy interests which have such far-reaching influences upon character.