Rapides gazette. (Alexandria, La.) 1869-187?, 1873-03-08
Educated Observers.

In talking to the San Franciscans NOT
long ago. Professor Agassiz urged upon
them the propriety of establishing In their
midst Museum of Natural Science, not
merely because q collection of scientific
specimens, such as they have the means
OF making, would be an honor to their
city and state, but more especially because
sucn collections serve to make educated
observers. whose habits of observation
VIII enable them to become worthy con-
trioutors to the general fund of human
knowledge.
Now, in that one happy phrase. 0edu-
Gated Observers" the professor struck the
Keynote of all true educational principles.
The habit of observation is, above ali else.
the educator, and the man or woman who
cultivates that makes sure work In the
matter Of acquiring information, whether
the habit be accompanied BY much or lit
tie OF scholastic culture. All that we
know of physical science, of course. we
owe to observation alone. But this Is not
all. In thousand other ways the study
Of things and the study of men is Of even
more value than the study Of books. In
deed, the very books we use, IL they be Of
any account at all, are the mere or less
immediate fruit of intelligent observation.
All that we know has been learned orig
inally by this process. We observe q fact,
and learn that 1t Is a fact. From it and
others we draw conclusions. And this Is
the genesis of all our knowing. We get
from books only the results Of other peo-
pies observations, and, while these are Of
great worth without doubt, we can not do
a more foolish thing than to rest satisfied
with them, and neglect the countless op-
portunities we have of questioning tie
things about US for information at first
hand. As well might we refuse to look at
Niagara because we have already seen
pictuie es and read descriptions of the cata-
ract.
Training of precisely this sort-the cul-
ivation of the habit of looking at and
looking into the things with which we
daily come i'm contact--is one of the great
educational needs of our time, as It has
been of all other times. The only wonder
Is, that professional educators In the past
have been so slow to recognize the want
and to supply it. We observe facts, and
we question them of their cause and
meaning instinctively. We do II even i'm
early childhood, and ordinarily the ten
1ency is pretty effectuaIly checked then
by those who ought rather to encourage
I, and to so direct it that 1t will bear
abundant fruit. The child who sets him
'elf down to commit something to men,
Dry, however worthless, or however un-
to him that something may be,
s sure of encouragement. But II he ask
Why iron sinks and wood floats in the
water, he is shut up like q jack-knife,
Win some idiotically wise saw about be-
ng seen and not heard.
But it is not merely the habit of observ-
ng that we need to cultivate. We must
earn to observe intslligeHtly-to look at
hings with our wits about us, and to
earn their causes and consequences as
veil as the facts themselves. Anybody
nay see the bud, the blossom, and the
ruit of tree In all their regular order,
ut if he see no more than these, his os-
crving Is of little wol tn. He must see
a the bud the beginning of q blossom, In
he blossom the promise, in the fruit the
llfllment, before his looking win have
aught him even SO small thing as why
he bud and the blossom are. We can
ardly fail to be observers so long as we
ave eyes and ears, but we may, If we
Till, make ourselves educated observers,
,hich is quite another thing. We may
arm to make q teacher out Of everything
round us, and thus draw instruction
'om hundred sources that were other
rise sealed books to us, and indeed we
lust. do something Of this sort II we
,ould be really and truly educsted.-
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