Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “Review of Charles Brooks' Address,” from the New York Weekly Mirror (New York), January 28, 1845, vol. 1, no. 16, p. 249, cols. 2-3

An Address on the Introduction of Natural History as a regular Classic in our Seminaries. By CHARLES BROOKS, Boston. W. D. Ticknor & Co.

It seems somewhat strange that a study of such obvious utility, and one which so long ago attained its due place in the seminaries of Europe, should need recommending in this country at this late day. But so it is; and this is only one of the many instances in which we, who pride ourselves on being a practical people, betray the narrowness and inconsistency of our estimate of what is practical. If for no other purpose, the study Of Natural History would be invaluable as obliging the student to acquire the habit of mental classification — a point on which Mr. Brooks dwells with judicious emphasis. The lack of exactness in all American learning has been often commented upon by foreigners, and acknowledged by ourselves; and it can scarcely be doubts that to make the natural sciences a prominent study with our youth would be one of the best foundations for an era of better things in this respect.

As to Natural History as a means of moral progress, hear Mr. Brooks: “The difference of being an intelligent reader of the works of God and no reader at all, is immense. * * He who looks on the letters of a printed page sees dark lines on a white ground; but he — who, in addition, can read and can comprehend — he looks beyond the outward forms to the inner intelligence, and gathers up the inspiration that lies hidden under these dead signs: So he who looks with uninstructed eye upon the vast creation, sees sky, earth, animals, and motion, and there he stops; while the naturalist, regarding also these outward forms, passes through them to analyze the whole, and thus penetrates till he comes to the divine idea or central model after which the whole universe is formed, with its perfect unity of design and its infinite variety of parts. He reads on the page of nature the grand, majestic text of divine wisdom and love, written in characters which time cannot corrode, and preserved, from age to age, from all corrupt interpolations.”