156 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



tion. We need hardly allude here to the eminent success which has 

 attended the Rev. Professor Henslow's method of teaching botany to 

 the children of day-labourers in village schools, as a proof that science 

 not only may be, but must be, scientifically taught, if it is to be well 

 received by children, even of our lower orders. These have under- 

 standings which, however rude and uncultivated, are by nature sharply 

 discriminative; and they have faculties of observation, memory, and 

 judgment, which are quickened by the study of Natural History more 

 effectually than by any other method of training that has hitherto 

 been adopted. 



It seems rather odd, that whilst in America the elements of science 

 have long been taught in the public schools, the means of teaching 

 botany well is only now supplied ; and it is no less singular that the 

 converse of this state of matters should hold good in England ; for here 

 the natural sciences are almost excluded from schools, though works 

 well (and some of them admirably) suited for such schools are not only 

 published, but have a very large sale and wide-spread reputation. Of 

 these none has a higher or better deserved repute than Lindley s 

 6 School Botany/ In point of execution, this work of Lindley's and 

 that of Professor Gray's are equal ; in their applicability to their pro- 

 fessed purposes they are also equally meritorious; in their being as 

 well adapted to beginners of immature as of mature age, they are fur- 

 ther strictly comparable ; but in all other respects they differ widely, 

 and both are necessary to make up the complement of elementary 

 works. 



Such a book as Lindley's ' School Botany/ which enables a beginner 

 very rapidly to make so much sound progress as to be able, in a dozen 

 lessons, to acquire a practical knowledge of plants, and to go on by 

 himself in determining the affinities of plants, is not superseded by 

 such lessons as Gray's ; and on the other hand, a good book on the 

 plan of Gray's is a desideratum in this country. Lindley's admirable 

 ! Elements ' comes nearest to it, but is not intended for the general 

 purposes of school-teaching, and is quite unsuited to beginners ; his 

 ? Ladies' Botany/ also a very good work, and one that has done excel- 

 lent service, is conducted upon a different principle ; and Balfour's full 

 and useful % Outlines ' is far too comprehensive, and better adapted to 

 refresh the memories of those who have mastered the elements of bo- 

 tany, and made some progress in its details. 



