More than this, it is the wonderfully perfect instrument, and implicitly
obedient servant, by which all that we do is performed.
But the science that teaches us all that is known about our bodies is a
very difficult study, and there are many hard names to master, even at
the very outset. For instance, when we speak of the bony framework--that
skeleton which, as you know, belongs to us in common with the vertebrate
animals--there is a great deal which you would find very difficult to
remember.
Still, as I daresay you have found out, the more we learn, even of
difficult sciences, the more we _can_ learn, and little May (though, to
be sure, she is now four years older than she was when you first made her
acquaintance) _has_ learnt a good many of the hard words. She could show
you upon her own round arm, just where the bone which reaches from the
shoulder to the elbow begins and ends, and tell you its name, and the
names of the two bones which reach from the elbow to the wrist, and of the
wrist-bones, and of those which you can feel in the palm of your hand, and
the finger-bones.
But when you hear that you have more than two hundred bones in your body,
you will be inclined to agree with me that it would take both of us some
time to learn even their names, much more to know all about them.
The spine consists of twenty-four short bones, each with a little ring.
These vertebras are piled up one upon the other; for God has made our
bodies upright; our faces, are lifted upwards, and our eyes look straight
before us.
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