Robert Burdette, in one of his lectures, thus describes scientific
education in primeval times: "When a placid but exceedingly
unanimous-looking animal went rolling by, producing the general effect
of an eclipse, Cain would shout:
"Oh, lookee, lookee, pa! What's that?"
"Then the patient Adam, trying to saw enough kitchen wood to last over
Sunday, with a piece of flint for a saw, would have to pause and gather
up enough words to say:
"That, my son? That is only a mastodon giganteus; he has a bad look but
a Christian temper."
And then presently:
"Oh, pa! pa! What's that over yon?"
"Oh, bother," Adam would reply; "it's only a paleotherium, mammalia
pachydermata."
"Oh, yes; theliocomeafterus. Oh, lookee, lookee at this 'un!"
"Where, Cainny? Oh, that in the mud? That's only an acephala lamelli
branchiata. It won't bite you, but you mustn't eat it. It's poison as
politics."
"Whee! See there! See, see, see! What's him?"
"Oh, that? Looks like a pleiosaurus; keep out of his way; he has a jaw
like your mother."
"Oh, yes; a plenosserus. And what's that fellow, poppy?"
"That's a silurus malapterous. Don't you go near him, for he has the
disposition of a Georgia mule."
"Oh, yes; a slapterus. And what's this little one?"
"Oh, it's nothing but an aristolochioid. Where did you get it? There,
now, quit throwing stones at the acanthopterygian; do you want to be
kicked? And you keep away from the nothodenatrichomanoides. My stars,
Eve! where did he get that anonaceo-hydro-charideo-nymphaeoid? Do you
never look after him at all? Here, you Cain, get right away from down
there, and chase that megalosaurius out of the melon-patch, or I'll set
the mono-pleuro brachian on you!"