“No, but I do think our veneration for science frightens us off open ground. Huxley somewhere draws a line between science and what he calls ‘common information,’ and this I take to mean an acquaintance with the facts about us, whether of Nature or of society. It’s a shameful thing to be unable to answer such questions as Tom’s. Every one should know something about such facts of Nature as the child is likely to come across. But how to get at this knowledge! Books? Well, I don’t say but you may get to know _about_ most things from books, but as for knowing the thing itself, let me be introduced by him that knew it before me!” “I see what you mean; we want the help of the naturalist, an enthusiast who will not only teach but fire us with the desire to know.” “But don’t you find, Morris, that even your enthusiast, if he’s a man of science, is slow to recognise the neutral ground of common information?” “That may be; but, as for getting what we want--pooh! it’s a question of demand and supply. If you don’t mind my talking about ourselves I should like just to tell you what we did last summer. Perhaps you may know that I dabble a little in geology--only dabble--but every tyro must have noticed how the features of a landscape depend on its geological formation, and not only the look of the landscape, but the occupations of the people. Well, it occurred to me that if, instead of the hideous ‘resources’--save the word!--of a watering-place, what if we were to study the ‘scape’ of a single formation? The children would have that, at any rate, in visible presentation, and would hold a key to much besides. “My wife and I love the South Downs, perhaps for auld sake’s sake, so we put up at a farmhouse in one of the lovely ‘Lavants’ near Goodwood. Chalk and a blackboard were inseparably associated; and a _hill_ of chalk was as surprising to the children as if all the trees were bread and cheese. Here was _wonder_ to start with, wonder and desire to know. Truly, a man hath joy in the answer of his mouth! The delight, the deliciousness of pouring out answers to their eager questions! and the illimitable receptivity of the children! This was the sort of thing--after scrawling on a flint with a fragment of chalk:--