The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-19

put sex at first; the language shows it,
Tor at hrst all words had gender.
Love OF nature begins in the second
| airy sexual qualities. 1t is the origin of
nearly all scientific discoveries in the
world. There is not a religion in the
world that did originate in the love of
nature We talk of love of nature, but
we nave no conception of its dominant
stfength In early society. The same is
true of art. The great creative mo-
ments OF art have been realized by
those smitten by the grandeur of ma
ture. And in indigenous literature all
deals with nature.
We see some curious outcrops of that
now. l was reading a book by an
Italian peasant woman. She loved ma
lure and in an old trunk on which she
used to sit, was found scrubbed on bits
OIL bark and scraps of paper poems of
nature. Utterly untaught, Gathering in
her wooden shoes, she wrote these DO
ems which glow with every instinct of
the mother life of the hills and clouds
The cow is sacred in India; it is one
outcrop of that totemism which has
ruled many savage nations. A great
many of the primitive religions of tho
world have grown out of love for ami
mails. Children have in their love Of
animals the great passions of the ear
ly men.
Ruskin says, the tree is the most
beautiful thing in the world. The If
feet of the tree made Gothic art, the
Drulds had no other supreme form of
veneration than trees. So we live
among the debris of these great nature
passions which have dominated the
world, and we need to develop the love
in our children.
l believe that the nature work which
Is coming into our schools today will
prove to be one of the grandest ideas
in education, provided it does not rest
on purely utilitarian standpoint, but
to develope this old passion, that makes
for the highest Christianity We must
pc good pagans before we may be good
Christians.
l should like to have some method
invented to measure interest. The
school room seems to be some times
made place to kill all pleasant things,
and some teachers seem to think that
whatever is interesting is wrong. There
is need some times of urging people,
however.
Wherever there is the least talent it
shows itself by interest. What kind
of an education would that be that
turned children out of school with all
their interests satisfied? The sense Of
finality is fatal
The object of the school is to send
people out hungry. Education com
pleted is a dreadful term. When you
have sent children out with increased
interest you have done the best for
children.
An education of germs is what we need
The value of facts is directly proper
tionate to the interest they engender.
One measure of growth is how broad
and large and deep the affections are.
Education is to teach to love right
things, with the proper perspectives.
Facts are educative just as they are
proportionate to the passions they bring
out. Religion is rightly interpreting
life and consecrating it to the living for
others in the best way. We have in us
the strong idea of Immortality 1t is
partly due to the conservation of en-
ergy. The immortality of influence is
large part of life. We all want to
do something that will do somebody
good. We want to be represented in
posterity. We have other forms of this
idea. Some think that the idea is not
complete until they have demonstrated
it on states in a dark room and in very
bad English by means of a 'tmedium."
If immortality consisted in this,
I'd rather die than have such imrnor-
tality.
The great progress made in the world
is that religion and science are COM
ing together. Goodwill never had
such complete embodiment as is found
in evolution. The divorce between
religion and science began in England
and became stronger and stronger and
between the two needs have grown up
and young men have had some diff
Guilty in making their science and re-
ligion unite. These things are not sep
arate. but one.
! haven't any use for a religion that
will not stand the biological and ply
steal laboratory.
Many have said: Religion first and
science afterwards but let our motto
be religion and science, one and in
separabIe