of natural science
in individual life and in society are so manifold that we accept many
of the finest products of skill and art as if they were natural
products--as if gold coins, silk dresses, and fine pictures grew on the
bushes and only waited to be picked. The thousand-fold applications of
natural science to human industry and comfort deserve to be perceived
as _the result of labor and inventive skill_. Our much-lauded steam
engines, telegraph microscopes, sewing machines, reapers, iron ships,
and printing presses, are not examples of a few, but of myriads of
things that natural science has secured. But how many children on
leaving the common school understand the principle involved in any one
of the machines mentioned, subjects of common talk as they are? As
children leave the schools at fourteen or fifteen they should know and
appreciate many such things, wherein man, by his wit and ingenious use
of natures forces, has triumphed over difficulties. How are glass and
soap made? What has a knowledge of natural science to do with the
construction of stoves, furnaces, and lamps? How are iron, silver, and
copper ore mined and reduced? How is sugar obtained from maple trees,
cane, and beet root? How does a suction pump work and why? Without a
knowledge of such applications of natural science we should be thrown
back into barbarism. These things also, since they form such an
important part of every child's environment, should be understood, but
not for direct utility.

Historically considered, the study of natural science is the study of
man's long continued struggle with nature and of his gradual triumph.
It ends with insight into nature and into those contrivances of men by
which her laws and forces are utilized. The whole subject of nature,
her laws and powers, must not remain a sealed book to the masses of the
people. Scientists, inventors, and scholars may lead the way, but they
are only pioneers. The thousands of the children of the people are
treading at their heels and must be initiated into the mysteries.

Our knowledge of these principles and appliances constitute in fact a
good share of the foundation upon which our whole _culture status_
rests. Without natural science we should understand neither nature nor
society. Spencer shows the wide-reaching value of science knowledge in
our modern life: "For leaving out only some very small classes, what
are all men employed in? They are employed in t