Robert Walter Weir captured the mid-nineteenth-century fascination with science and devotion to domestic education in The Microscope. In the painting, Jacob Whitman Bailey, the pioneer of American microscopy and a professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, instructs his sons along with his daughter Maria, at right. At a time when education for girls focused on music, dancing, and needlework, Bailey taught Maria science. Father’s and daughter's costumes evoke the period of Galileo, calling forth the power of science and tempering rational inquiry with romantic wonderment. As they became affordable tools for home teaching, microscopes took on religious overtones because they unveiled what many believed to be "the inner labyrinths of creation." Weir's portrayal of Bailey as both scientist and father exemplifies the Romantic belief in the sacred duty to educate children.
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