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THE HISTORY OF A MOUTHFUL OF BREAD:
And Its Effect on the Organization of Men and Animals.
Translated Prom the Eighth French Edition, By Mrs. Alfred Gatty.
The volume of which the following pages are a translation, has beenadopted by the University Commission at Paris among their prizebooks, and has reached an eighth edition. Perhaps these facts speaksufficiently in its favor; but as translator, and to some extent editor,I wish to add my testimony to the great charm as well as merit of thelittle work. I sat down to it, I must own, with no special predilectionin favor of the subject as a suitable one for young people; but in thecourse of the labor have become a thorough convert to the author'sviews that such a study—perhaps I ought to add, so pursued as he hasenabled it to be—is likely to prove a most useful and most desirableone.
The precise age at which the interest of a young mind can be turnedtowards this practical branch of natural history is an open question,and not worth disputing about. It may vary even in differentindividuals. The letters are addressed to a child—in the originaleven to a little girl—and most undoubtedly, as the book stands, it isfit for any child's perusal who can find amusement in its pages: whileto the rather older readers, of whom I trust there will be a great many,I will venture to say that the advantage they will gain in the subjecthaving been so treated as to be brought within the comprehension andadapted to the tastes of a child, is pretty nearly incalculable. Thequaintness and drollery of the illustrations with which difficultscientific facts are set forth will provoke many a smile, no doubt, andin some young people perhaps a tendency to feel themselves treatedbabyishly; but if in the course of the babyish treatment they findthemselves almost unexpectedly becoming masters of an amount of valuableinformation on very difficult subjects, they will have nothing tocomplain of. Let such young readers refer to even a popularEncyclopaedia for an insight into any of the subjects of thetwenty-eight chapters of this volume—"The Heart," "The Lungs," "TheStomach," "Atmospheric Pressure,"—no matter which, and see how muchthey can understand of it without an amount of preliminary instructionwhich would require half-a-year's study, and they will then thoroughlyappreciate the quite marvellous ingenuity and beautiful skill withwhich M. Macé has brought the great leading anatomical and physicalfacts of life out of the depths of scientific learning, and made themliterally comprehensible by a child.
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There is one point (independent of the scientific teaching) and that,happily, the only really important one, in which the English translatorhas had no change to make or desire. The religious teaching of thebook is unexceptionable. There is no strained introduction of thesubject, but there is throughout the volume an acknowledgment of theGreat Creator of this marvellous work of the human frame, of the dailyand hourly gratitude we owe to Him, and of the utter impossibility ofour tracing out half his wonders, even in the things nearest to oursenses, and most constantly subject to observation. M. Macé will help,and not hinder the humility with which the Christian naturalist liftsone veil only to recognise another beyond.
It will be satisfactory to any one who may be inclined to wonder