p. 20 | Baby Scientists

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · May 4, 1905

Baby Scientists

ALL the sciences begin in the cradle. In the simplest form observed by the child, lies the beginning of both natural history and geometry. In its first conscious exercise of motion and force, begin natural philosophy and mechanics. In the watched play of a sunbeam, is read the first lesson in optics and astronomy. With the counted fingers begins elementary arithmetic. The first expeditions of the tiny pattering feet invade the realms of geography and geology, and the busy ply of childish hands explore half a score of sciences. Even the metaphysical sciences are begun here. In the recognized word of endearment, or the familiarized call to food, both language and logic has a place; and mental philosophy begins with the first perception of thought or feeling read by the child in the mother's face. No pupil enters our public schools

who has not already begun the study of every branch of knowledge, and acquired hundreds of facts in every one of the sciences. Every science, in its infancy, began with just such facts as these, simple facts of sense, and centuries of observation and slow accumulation passed by before the scientific formula was reached, and the underlying philosophies emerged to view.—Selected.