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are occupied with subjects distinct from one's own. It has
often been said that to be thoroughly educated we should
"know something of everything and everything of some-
thing;" the specialist, however, being obliged to ignore the
existence of nature outside his own subject, is too apt to
think that beyond his own province there is nothing worth
investigating—he has been travelling for a great many years
down a lane between dead walls in which it is sometimes
necessary to make a breach in order to show him that there
is open country beyond. If the friendly gatherings of our Club
are in any way conducive to enlarging the ideas, on the one
hand, of those who have never yet directly asked a question of
nature, and, on the other, of those who have spent years in
prying laboriously into some obscure corner of her domain,
one of our main objects will have been accomplished.
Thus, in addition to the acquisition of new knowledge,
Field Clubs are capable of doing good work in the way of
education. The faculty of paramount importance to the
scientist is that of observation, and no study is better calcu-
lated to develop this faculty than that of natural history.
The power of observation comes naturally to the young, but
unfortunately is too often extinguished before maturity is
reached by the ignorance of those whose solemn duty it should
have been to have assisted the development of this instinct.
Charles Dickens says ("David Copperfield," Chap. II.):—"I
believe the powers of observation in numbers of very young
children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy.
Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in
this respect may with greater propriety be said not to have
lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the rather, as I
generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness
and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also
an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood."
Comparing our young Society with a growing child, let us
foster among our members this observational faculty, and let
us hope that we shall reach a vigorous intellectual manhood,
and in due time become a "feeder" of the learned societies.
Our most useful work will thus be at first the observation
and recording of the phenomena of that district which we