Reverence for Life

Is it advisable, then, to teach the children the elements of natural science, of biology, botany, zoology?  On the whole, no:  the dissection even of a flower is painful to a sensitive child, and, during the first six or eight years of life, I would not teach them any botany which should necessitate the pulling of flowers to bits; much less should they be permitted to injure or destroy any (not noxious) form of animal life.  Reverence for life, as a wonderful and awful* gift, which a ruthless child may destroy but never can restore, is a lesson of first importance to the child:–

“Let knowledge grow from more to more;
But more of reverence in us dwell.”[1]

The child who sees his mother with reverent touch lift an early snowdrop to her lips, learns a higher lesson than the ‘print-books’ can teach.  Years hence, when the children are old enough to understand that science itself is in a sense sacred and demands some sacrifices, all the ‘common information’ they have been gathering until then, and the habits of observation they have acquired, will form a capital groundwork for a scientific education.  In the meantime, let them consider the lilies of the field and the fowls of the air.