The modern scientist knows that every living thing is marvelous, and that the simplest and most primitive most readily reveal natural laws which help us to interpret the most complicated beings. St. Francis indeed knew this: "Come closer, O my sister," he said to the grasshopper chirping beneath the fig-tree near the window of his cell; "the smaller the creature the more perfectly does it reveal the power and goodness of the Creator." Each tiny thing is worthy of the scientist's minute attention; he counts the articulations which make up the claws of an insect, and knows the veinings of its most delicate wings; he finds interesting details where the ordinary eye would not linger for a moment. St. Francis also observed these things, but they awoke in him a feeling of spiritual joy and called forth a hymn of praise: "Who, who gave me these little fairy feet, furnished with healthy and flexible little bones, to enable me to spring swiftly from branch to branch, from twig to twig? Who further gave me eyes, _crystal globes that revolve_ and see before and behind, to spy out all my enemies, the predatory kite, the black crow, the greedy goose? And he gave me wings, _delicate tissues of gold and green and blue_, which reflect the color of the skies and of my trees." The vision of the teacher should be at once precise like that of the scientist, and spiritual like that of the saint. The preparation for science and the preparation for sanctity should form a new soul, for the attitude of the teacher should be at once positive, scientific, and spiritual. Positive and scientific, because she has an _exact_ task to perform, and it is necessary that she should put herself into immediate relation with the truth, by means of rigorous observation, that she should strip off all illusions, all the idle creations of the fancy, that she should distinguish truth from falsehood unerringly, that, in fact, she should follow the example of the scientist, who takes account of every minute particle of matter, every elementary and embryonic form of life, but eliminates all optical delusions, all the confusion which impurities and foreign substances might introduce into the search for truth. To achieve such an attitude _long practise is necessary, and a wide observation of life_ under the guidance of the biological sciences. Spiritual, because it is to man that his powers of observation are to be applied, and because the characteristics of the creature who is to be his particular subject of observation are spiritual.