the elementary notions which are
necessary to soundness of knowledge may be acquired rapidly and at any
age. Hence it follows that all whose leisure for culture is limited, and
who value soundness of knowledge, do wisely to pursue some branch of
natural history rather than languages or the fine arts.

It is well for every one who desires to attain a perfect economy of
time, to make a list of the different pursuits to which he has devoted
himself, and to put a note opposite to each of them indicating the
degree of its unsoundness with as little self-delusion as may be. After
having done this, he may easily ascertain in how many of these pursuits
a sufficient degree of soundness is attainable for him, and when this
has been decided he may at once effect a great saving by the total
renunciation of the rest. With regard to those which remain, and which
are to be carried farther, the next thing to be settled is the exact
limit of their cultivation. Nothing is so favorable to sound culture as
the definite fixing of limits. Suppose, for example, that the student
said to himself "I desire to know the flora of the valley I live in,"
and then set to work systematically to make a herbarium illustrating
that flora, it is probable that his labor would be more thorough, his
temper more watchful and hopeful, than if he set himself to the
boundless task of the illimitable flora of the world. Or in the pursuit
of fine art, an amateur discouraged by the glaring unsoundness of the
kind of art taught by ordinary drawing-masters, would find the basis of
a more substantial superstructure on a narrower but firmer ground.
Suppose that instead of the usual messes of bad color and bad form, the
student produced work having some definite and not unattainable purpose,
would there not be, here also, an assured economy of time? Accurate
drawing is the basis of soundness in the fine arts, and an amateur, by
perseverance, may reach accuracy in drawing; this, at least, has been
proved by some examples--not by many, certainly, but by some. In
languages we may have a limited purpose also. That charming and most
intelligent traveller, Louis Enault, tells us that he regularly gave a
week to the study of each new language that he needed, and found that
week sufficient. The assertion is not so presumptuous as it appears. For
the practical necessities of travelling M. Enault found that he required
about four hundred words, and that, having a good memory, he w