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MAN THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION. 33
various powers of the mind, like those of the body, must be unfolded, trained, and enlarged by education.
How long and patient then must be the study and toil of man before he can acquire that stretch of geographical knowledge, which would seem to be the free gift of Heaven to the migratory bird! That feathered voyager, untaught and often alone, performs a journey of a thousand or two thousand miles, and that in the space of a single week. It goes to a country where it has never been before; it pursues a track which is totally new. It flies from a winter which it has never tried, and, as if led by the gift of prophecy, proceeds with the speed and directness of an arrow, to find shelter in a region of perpetual summer. There is something in all this so wonderful, that many naturalists have been disposed to explain the seeming knowledge of birds by supposing it to be communicated by » their parents. But this would imply an aptness
to learn and a force of memory even more wonderful than the difficulty to be explained. Besides, we have instances which show this mysterious power of instinct, and at the same time forbid the proposed explanation. The passenger pigeon is often taken from London to Paris, and, being let loose, goes straight back to its
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