Joseph Leidy

“ Considering the circumstance that all things, except what we make of them, are natural objects, it would seem that the first and main efforts of education, after acquiring sufficient language and arithmetic to express our ideas of qualities and numbers, would be to learn what the objects are. ”

“ The child on learning to speak at once begins to ask about the things it sees, but unfortunately too often the parent and teacher are incapable of giving the desired information, and ordinarily it meets with so little satisfaction that finally the spirit of inquiry disappears. For most persons, after distinguishing the ordinary articles pertaining to the necessities and conveniences of life, the crudest generalities of knowledge appear to be sufficient. ”

“ The information possessed by a country boy, gained by intelligent observation, of the birds or plants of his neighborhood, is viewed by the so-called educated community as insignificant in comparison with that of the college boy who can relate stories, from classical history, of persons who never existed and events that never occurred. ”