One of the wise teachers who are all the time thinking what will help and interest children wrote me a letter. In it, he said, “If you wish to do our school children a real service, write something about cabinets in our schools. In each school-house there should be a collection of natural history objects, brought together by teachers and children. This would be of great use, and the children would take pleasure in collecting specimens.” So, right here, in the middle of this Third Book, I want to say a word about cabinets of natural curiosities. In the Second Book I told you here and there how you might catch and keep a specimen. I told you how to dry beetles, star-fish, and a few other little animals. If you make a collection of this kind, you can look at the object when you read of it in the book. That will help you to understand it and will interest you. In a cabinet you could keep safely for use many nice things, which might otherwise be wasted. Also, you might spend some of your pennies in buying specimens. I think pennies are much better spent so than for candy and cake. If you are collecting a cabinet of curiosities, I think you might write letters to other schools, or far off friends to ask them to send you specimens. You might offer to trade objects, of which you have several, for something which other people have, and you have not. I think, too, you would be very happy out of doors, looking for specimens. And I believe you and your teachers would be greater friends than ever, if you were all helping each other to get a cabinet together. If, at first, you cannot have a cabinet case with glass doors, have some shelves. Have some boxes to set on the shelves, and lay pieces of glass over the boxes for covers. Those little paper boxes--, which jewellers and druggists use, are very nice for small objects,--as seeds, little shells, and so on. Nearly all children have some of these boxes. When you have specimens in these little boxes, the teacher will write the name of the object on the box. I knew a boy, who made a very nice collection of many kinds of wood. He cut the wood into wedges, with a bit of the bark left on. One side of the wedge he polished with glass and sand paper. One side he left rough. He wrote on each piece of wood the name of the tree from which it came. I once saw some lovely pictures of leaves. They were made by a little girl. How did she make them? Could she paint? No. She had some small sheets of stiff paper. She got some printer’s ink in a cup. She made two little balls of woollen cloth. She would take a nice, fresh, perfect leaf, and with one ball she would put a little ink, very gently, over all the under surface of the leaf. Then the next thing was to lay the leaf, inked side down, on a sheet of stiff paper, and pat it gently all over with the other woollen ball.