i20 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY: 



or later, of using imitative signs for the 

 purpose of bringing absent things to the 

 thoughts of another mind ? " 



Thk First Book of Botany. By Eliza A. 

 Youmans. New edition. D. Appleton & 

 Company. 



A school-book which declares itself to 

 be little else than a finger-board, pointing 

 to something else to be studied, and which 

 is designed to avoid lesson-learning and to 

 break up school-routine, is certainly some- 

 thing unusual in the educational world, and 

 we might suppose from all analogy that it 

 would meet with little favor. Yet such are 

 the character and object of the "First Book 

 of Botany." It was prepared, not to enable 

 the pupil to memorize a certain amount of 

 information about the vegetable kingdom, 

 but to put him in the way of training his 

 observing powers by the actual, systematic 

 study of plants themselves. It is a hand- 

 book of guidance in the work of observa- 

 tion. It is an encouraging sign of improve- 

 ment in methods of instruction that a book 

 so thoroughly constructed on this plan 

 should still not be a day ahead of the time. 

 Its prompt and extensive adoption by the 

 Boards of Education in many cities is an 

 encouraging evidence of progress in the art 

 of elementary teaching. The work has 

 been reprinted in England, and is reviewed 

 in the Pall Mall Gazette by Prof. Payne, of 

 the College of Preceptors, under the title of 

 " Botany as a Fourth Fundamental Branch 

 of Study." He says : 



" This book is so remarkably distin- 

 guished from the ordinary run of school- 

 books that no apology is necessary for call- 

 ing the attention, not only of teachers, but 

 of all who are interested in education, to its 

 pretensions and merits. Too many school- 

 books, professedly compiled for the use of 

 children, are really fit only to be hand-books 

 for the teacher or the adult scientific stu- 

 dent. Abounding with definitions and ab- 

 stractions which presuppose a knowledge of 

 the facts on which they are founded, they 

 tend to quench rather than quicken the 

 dawning intelligence of the child. These 

 abstractions, though called principia or be- 

 ginnings, are, in fact, such only to the mind 

 already trained in deduction. Induction, on 

 the other hand, appears to be the only pos- 



sible method that a child can employ in 

 gaining a real knowledge of principles. We 

 may, of course and we usually do cram 

 him with those intellectual boluses called 

 definitions and rules, in the hope and belief 

 that some time or other he will digest them ; 

 but we also very commonly and here ia the 

 absurdity of our plan leave /his prccesa 

 of mental digestion to chance, instead of re- 

 garding it as the end to be secured by the 

 training of the teacher. Thousands of chil- 

 dren carry about with them this crude, un- 

 digested matter, throughout the whole of 

 their school-life ; and, if it is ever assimilated 

 and appropriated by the mental system, it 

 is after school-life is over, and the youth 

 takes his education into his own hands and 

 begins it anew. Holding, then, as we do, 

 that the primary aim of all teaching should 

 be the quickening of intellectual life in the 

 pupil, and trying school-books generally by 

 this test, we cannot but pronounce the great 

 mass of them to be hinderances rather than 

 helps to the object in view. They are hin- 

 derances and not helps, whenever they super- 

 sede the action of the pupil's own mind on 

 the facts which they describe. In mattera 

 of science especially, the facts, the concrete 

 things, are the true teachers, and should be 

 allowed to impress their lessons by direct 

 contact without any foreign intervention 

 on the mind of the learner. These lessons 

 gained by the authoritative teaching of facts 

 will necessarily be productive of clear, defi- 

 nite, and permanent impressions, and must, 

 therefore, be far more valuable than those 

 given by the conventional bookmaker on his 

 own authority. We go further, and main- 

 tain that the principle we have suggested 

 furnishes a true test of the suitability of any 

 given subject for elementary instruction, 

 which, as we believe, should be confined in 

 its earliest stages to those subjects in which 

 the pupil can gain his knowledge at first 

 hand from facts within his own cognizance. 

 If, therefore, as has been declared by good 

 authorities on the subject, that kind of 

 teaching alone is effective which makes the 

 pupil teach himself, it is obvious that ele- 

 mentary education should consist in elicit- 

 ing the native powers of the child, and 

 make him take an active share in the pro- 

 cess by which knowledge is acquired ; in set- 

 ting him forth, in short, however young, on 



