The educational operations of Nature are universal; and she attaches large rewards to diligence in attending to them. She evidently intends, as we have said, that the parent and teacher should take up, and follow out her suggestions in this great work; but even when this is delayed, or altogether neglected, her part of the proceedings is not abandoned. Nature is so strong within the pupil, and her educational promptings are so powerful, that even without a teacher, he is able for a time to teach himself. In man, and even among many of the more perfect specimens of the lower creation, Nature has suspended the larger portion of their comforts and their security, upon attention to her lessons, and the practical application of that which she teaches. The dog which shuns the person who had previously beaten him; the infant that clings to its nurse, and refuses to leave her; the boy who refuses to cross the ditch he never tried before; the savage who traces the foot-prints of his game; the man who shrinks from a ruffian countenance; and Newton, when the fall of an apple prompted him to pursue successively the lessons which that simple event suggested to him, are all examples of the teachings of Nature,--specimens of the manner in which she enables her pupils to collect and retain knowledge, and stimulates them to apply it. Wherever these suggestions of Nature are individually neglected, there must be discomfort and danger, and wretchedness to the _person_ doing so; and wherever they are not taken up by communities, and socially taught by education of some kind or another, _society_ must necessarily remain little better than savage.--The opposite of this is equally true; for wherever they are personally attended to, the individual promotes his own safety and comfort; and when they are socially taken up and followed out by education, however imperfectly, then civilization, and national security, prosperity, and happiness, are the invariable consequences. The information which we are to derive from the Academy of Nature, is to be found chiefly in those instances where she is least interfered with by the operations of others. In these we shall endeavour to follow her; and, by classifying her several processes, and investigating each of them in its order, we shall assuredly be able to arrive at some first principles, to guide us in imitating the modes of her working, and which will enable us, in some measure, to share in her success. When we take a comprehensive view of the educational processes of Nature, we find them arranging themselves under four great divisions, blending into each other, no doubt, like the kingdoms of Nature and the colours of the rainbow, but still perfectly distinct in their great characteristics.