OBSERVATION

To be always attentively observing what is passing around them, is one of the means by which men improve their circumstances. The difference between men consists in a great measure, in the intelligence of their observation. The Russian proverb says of the non observant man, “He goes through the forest and sees no firewood.” “The wise man’s eyes are in his head,” says Solomon, “but the fool walketh in darkness.” “Sir,” said Johnson, on one occasion, to a fine gentleman just returned from Italy, “Some men will learn mere in the Hampstead stage than others in the tour of Europe.” It is the mind that sees as well as the eye. Where unthinking gazers observe nothing, men of intelligent vision penetrate into the very fibre of the phenomena presented to them, attentively noting differences, making comparisons and detecting their underlying idea. Many before Galilee, had seen a suspended weight swing before their eyes with a measured heat ; but he was the first to detect the value of the fact. One of the vergers in the Cathedral at Pisa, after replenishing with oil a lamp which hung from the roof, left it swinging to and fro; and Galileo, then a youth of only eighteen, noting it attentively, conceived the idea of applying it to the measurement of time. Fifty years of study and labor, however, elapsed before he completed the invention of his pendulum,—an invention, the importance of which, in the measurement of time and in astronomical calculation can be introduced by two of a spectacle-maker’s glasses accidentally placed together, was led to the invention of the telescope, which was the beginning of astronomical discovery. Discoveries such as these could never have been made by a negligent observer, or by a mere idle gazer.

While captain (afterwards Sir Samuel) Brown was occupied in studying the construction of bridges, with the view of contriving one of a cheap description to be thrown across the Tweed, near which ha lived, he vas walking in his garden one dewy autumn morning when he saw a tiny spider’s net suspended across his path. The idea immediately occurred to him that a bridge of iron ropes or chains might be constructed in like manner, and the result was the invention of his Suspension Bridge. So James Watt, when consulted about the mode of carrying water by pipes under the Clyde along the unequal bed of the river, turned his attention one day to the shell of a lobster presented at table; and from that model he invented an iron tube, which, when laid down, was found effectually to answer the purpose. Sir Isambert Brunel took his first lessons in forming the Thames Tunnel from the tiny shipworm: he saw how the little creature perforated the wood with its well-armed head, first in one direction and then in another, till the archway was complete, and then daubing over the roof and sides with a kind of varnish; and by copying this work exactly on a large scale, Brunel was at length enabled to accomplish his great engineering work.

It is the intelligent eye of the careful observer which gives these apparently trivial phenomena their value. So trifling a matter as the sight of sea-weed floating past his ship, enabled Columbus to quell the mutiny which arose amongst his sailors at not discovering land, an to assure them that the eagerly sought New World was not far off,

The following familiar anecdote illustrates the action of both the perceptive and reflective faculties in a happy manner. It is a dialogue between an Indian and a white man, relating to a deer which had been killed by the Indian, and hung upon the limbs of a tree:

Indian to White Man—Have you seen a little old white man with a deer on his back, a long gun, and a little short-tailed dog pass by of late?

White Man—No. Why do you ask? And how do you know it was a little old white man with a long gun, and a little short-tailed dog?

Indian—The deer had been hung up so high that the thief could not reach it till he had first placed logs and blocks by the side of the tree on which to stand when he managed to get the “game.” He—the Indian—therefore inferred it was a small man who stole it.

White Man—But how do you know he had a long gun?

Indian—Because, seeing where it had been set on the ground, and, observing the mark where it touched the side of the tree higher up, showing it must have been a long gun.

White Man—How do you know he was an old white man?

Indian—I know he was a white man, for he turned his toes out in walking, which an Indian does not do, and I know he was old, because lie took short steps.

White Man—How do you know he had a small dog with a short tail?

Indian—By his tracks, and seeing where he sat on the snow while his master was taking down the deer; his short tail left its impression in the snow.

Thus, by the powers of “observation” which are great in the tutored Indian, he was enabled to describe a person he had not seen, to detect the thief, and fix the crime on him by strong circumstantial evidence.

Teach your children to observe closely, reflect carefully and describe exactly what they see. By this, that habit of reckless exaggeration and loose description, now so common, would in a great measure be avoided. Indeed, this is one way, the way to educate children.