that a great deal of where there is now sea was once dry land; and that the land has sunk down in some parts and the water has flowed over, and in other parts the water has retired and left the land high and dry, and the pebbles of course along with it. While he is putting all these little facts together, so far he is educating himself, by making his mind work, as well as acquiring specific knowledge of the world's history.

Perhaps he goes out on a fine frosty night in the winter time, and looking up in the sky he sees the stars, how beautifully they shine, with those fine constellations glittering so grandly, yet seeming to have no particular arrangement. Some are brighter than others, and he is very soon attracted by their splendour, and thinks it would really be very pleasant to know something more about them. After an hour's delight of his eyes, he takes a book and finds that there is one star that never changes its place, but stands as it were a pivot in the centre, like the middle of a wheel, and that all the other stars are moving round and round it, not rapidly, but that in the course of the twelve hours they will every one have changed their places; all except that one of itself. It is a very wonderful fact for us that the stars, though they seem so quiet, are always moving. We look up at them, and there they seem like a great army of soldiers, peacefully encamped for the night, all at rest, as it were sleeping. But come again in a few hours, and we find that whole regiments of these soldiers have moved away, and their places have been taken by others. On getting books, we find the explanation of it, and learn how it is that by attending to these movements of the stars, sailors are able to find their way in ships over the great sea. It is true they use a compass, but they depend in great measure on the stars, and on the moon, and their knowledge of their different positions at different times.

Knowledge of any branch of natural science,

whether it be the knowledge of animals, or plants, or minerals, tends to make our lives safer, and longer, and happier. Mark especially the word longer. When we come home from some beautiful place, where we have very much enjoyed ourselves, we say that it seems as if we had been there a month, though it may have been only a day. That is an illustration of the fact that the more sources of enjoyment we have, the more does time seem to stretch out, and instead of living in one world, we live in several. Every new source of true enjoyment furnishes a kind of world, into which we may go and refresh ourselves.

This also teaches us the value of time. The man who has no idea that this curious and wonderful information is to be got for the asking, does not know the value of time. He measures time by his meals and his sleep, instead of by the knowledge he acquires. Those people have most leisure, it is curious to tell, who have always got the most to do, and their hands and heads always best employed. It is only idle people who find time to hang heavy on their hands. Those who have always got plenty to do, find time moving on pleasantly enough. I will give you a golden rule, which I have acted upon all my life, that is, to use all the little bits of time. We have every one of us a vast deal more than we suppose, if we scraped it all together, and used up every bit. There are hundreds and hundreds of minutes, and odd quarters, and half-hours, that we let go by, thinking, "Oh its such a very short time, it's no use beginning anything. The time will be gone directly, so we can do it to-morrow." Now "to-morrow never comes. This "putting off" is the very thief of our time. The more we put off, the more time we lose. If you use up all the little bits of time, it is like keeping all the pennies safe, which in time make a pound. So with our bits of time,a few minutes in the morning, and again a few minutes after breakfast, and a little bit at the dinner

hour, and a little in the evening, and odd times when we are waiting at railway stations; in these odd bits and scraps we can do a vast deal. For instance, keep in your pocket some little tract, or magazine, or pamphlet ready to read. Look! here I have a pocket-full of papers that I should not think of attending to in a golden quiet hour at home; that quiet hour in the evening, when I am all by myself, is too precious to use for these; I keep them to look over in those odd minutes. By attending to the trifles in the odd minutes I keep the quiet hour for going steadily to work on some important book. I know a lady who, finding herself not so well acquainted with the English language as she could wish to be, kept a dictionary in her pocket, and a pencil and a slip of paper-(a man should always carry these latter in his pocket)- she learned a few difficult words every day while waiting for dinner, until at the end of twelve months she had accomplished her task of learning every word in the dictionary. In the same way we may get hold of almost any amount of information of other kinds. Let a man, for example, who is wishful to improve himself in arithmetic keep a book with a stiff cover in his pocket, and a bit of pencil, and in the odd moments I have spoken of practice his sums and figures.

Thus have I tried to show you, in how many unsuspected ways we may find pleasure as we go along; and I may conclude by repeating that we are not to suppose that in order to be happy, or to enjoy life, a great amount of absolute learning is required. It is not necessary that a man should know any language but his own-of course, it is all the better for him if he do-it is not necessary that he should be profoundly versed in any science-though he will be a great deal better off if he can get hold even of a single science;-if there is a reasonable aptitude, and a desire to find pleasure and information in what lies close at hand, we lengthen our lives, and find out really what life and enjoyment consist in. And

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there is this further advantage, that if a man is bent on getting hold of sensible ideas and pleasant feelings, he does not find himself ensnared by unpleasant thoughts, and evil feelings. Herein is the great advantage of natural history. No men have ever been more famous for the study of natural history than our Manchester hand-loom weavers, in by-gone years, and our Manchester botanists;—my old friend John Horsefield, a hand-loom weaver,—George Crozier, a saddler, who kept a shop in Shudehill, and Eversfield, who worked with him; then there was Zachariah Tetlow, another hand-loom weaver, up Oldham Road; Sam Gibson, the blacksmith, and many more I could mention, men self-taught, men, who learned to find pleasure in these common things, and who have had letters addressed to them by some of the most eminent naturalists and scientific gentlemen in London; they were men whom I was proud to shake by the hand when I met them; men who did not look so much into the profound, the far off, as in what lay near at home, learning how to enjoy life as they went along. A man can teach himself a vast deal more than he can be taught. We must be shown the way by our preceptors, but it is what a man gets for himself that makes him truly great; we must cultivate our own powers, and see how much we can get out of ourselves, by patiently attending to all that books and nature teach.

It is not what is far-fetched and dear-bought that makes us wealthy or happy, but making the most of the little things that are close at hand, and making the best of everything in every way. You may get as much knowledge from a little library as a large Circumstances certainly may make a man unfortunate in business, but they cannot make him miserable, or ignorant. If he is either unhappy or ignorant, it is his own fault.

one.

HOME EDUCATION:

BY THE REV. DR. BOOTH, F.R.S.

While the intellectual progress of a boy chiefly depends on his application to what he learns at school, his moral education depends on what he sees at home. The boy receives his instruction from his teacher; his education-that is, his moral habits -from his parents. This I believe to be the great difference between instruction and education; the one the boy receives from his teachers, the other from his parents. Notwithstanding all our exertions, all our outlay, is not the universal complaint that crime is on the increase? Now, the true cause is, that we cannot get at the root of the evil. The fact is and the sooner the truth is admitted the better-neither men nor children can be lectured into sobriety, piety, truthfulness, and the like. They are trained to them, not talked into them. The fact is, all virtues are habits not beliefs. Now, short as this saying is, it is about the most important I could utter. Good behaviour is a matter of habit, not of belief. The habitual drunkard, when he slinks into the public-house to brutify himself, knows as well as you or I do that he is doing wrong, and sees the consequences of his folly as clearly as anybody else. I might say the same of pilfering or stealing, I need not take any more illustrations; but now some one will say, "Why can't those good habits you speak of be taught at school?" The false notion implied in this question lurks under the word teach. Habits cannot be taught. They must be worked into the body or the mind by example and by imitation of that example. How are children taught to be truthful? It is not by lecturing them on the moral beauty of truth, but by correcting every instance of falsehood, and training them day by day to tell the truth in every separate case.