LITERARY NOTICES. 



I2i 



the path of investigation. The implicit re- 

 ception of truths gained by the observation 

 and experiments of others is, as things are, 

 often unavoidable in the case of the adult 

 man, presumed to be already educated, but 

 is antagonistic to educational training, which 

 consists in the development and direction of 

 the native intellectual forces of the child. 



" This conception of the nature and pow- 

 er of education has been firmly grasped and 

 exhibited with remarkable skill by the au- 

 thor of the little book now under notice, 

 which is expressly designed to make the 

 earliest instruction of children a mental dis- 

 cipline. Miss Youmans, of New York, pre- 

 sents in her work the ripe results of edu- 

 cational experience reduced to a system. 

 Wisely conceiving that all education even 

 the most elementary should be regarded 

 as a discipline of the mental powers, and 

 that the facts of external Nature supply the 

 most suitable materials for this discipline in 

 the case of children, she has applied that 

 principle to the study of botany. This 

 study, according to her just notions on the 

 subject, is to be fundamentally based on the 

 exercise of the pupil's own powers of ob- 

 servation. He is to see and examine the 

 properties of plants and flowers at first 

 hand, not merely to be informed of what 

 others have seen and examined. His own 

 observation, resulting in the perception for 

 himself of form, color, interrelation of parts, 

 likeness and unlikeness, etc., is to be the 

 primum mobile of his whole course of learn- 

 ing. His own examination and investiga- 

 tion of phenomena, his own reasoning and 

 judgment on discovered relations, are to 

 constitute the process by which he learns 

 not only the tacts and pnenomena of botany, 

 but also the use of his mental faculties. 

 Inasmuch, moreover, as the phenomena that 

 he observes are coordinated in Nature, the 

 process becomes one not only for acquiring 

 separate facts but organized knowledge, 

 and, therefore, a systematic training in the 

 art of observation. ' This plan,' Miss You- 

 mans remarks, ' first supplies the long-rec- 

 ognized deficiency of object - teaching by 

 reducing it to a method, and connecting it 

 with an established branch of school-study. 

 Instead of desultory practice in noting the 

 disconnected properties of casual objects, 

 the exercises are made systematic, and the 



pupil is trained not only to observe the sen- 

 sible facts, but constantly to put them in 

 those relations of thought by which they 

 become organized knowledge.' It is obvi- 

 ous that a course of instruction which se- 

 cures such results as these, and which ia 

 applicable to the most elementary educa- 

 tion, involving not merely the acquisition 

 of sound knowledge, but the systematic 

 training of the mind as a preparation for 

 subsequent studies, literary as well as scien- 

 tific, is a very valuable contribution to our 

 educational resources. It supplies 'that 

 exact and solid study of some portion of 

 inductive knowledge ' which is pointed out 

 by Dr. Whewell (lecture ' On Intellectual 

 Education,' delivered at the Royal Institu- 

 tion) as a want in education, and which 

 would end in a real discipline for the mind 

 by enabling it to ' escape from the thral- 

 dom and illusion which reign in the world 

 of mere words.' ' The knowledge of which 

 I speak,' he adds, ' must be a knowledge 

 of things, and not merely of names of 

 things ; an acquaintance with the opera- 

 tions and productions of Nature, as they ap- 

 pear to the eye, not merely an acquaint- 

 ance with what has been said about them j 

 a knowledge of the laws of Nature, seen in 

 special experiments and observations, be- 

 fore they are conceived in general terms ; a 

 knowledge of the types of natural forms 

 gathered from individual cases already made 

 familiar.' 



" The desideratum here indicated is, we 

 repeat, supplied for the first time by Miss 

 Youmans's plan of teaching botany, which 

 she accordingly proposes as a ' fourth fun- 

 damental branch of study, which shall af- 

 ford a systematic training of the observing 

 powers.' Some may of course question 

 the pretensions of botany to the position 

 here claimed ; but it will be found more 

 easy to object than to propose a substitute. 



" It may, however, with better reason, be 

 objected that the study of a descriptive 

 science like botany, which is founded essen- 

 tially on observation, fails to elicit the in- 

 ventive and constructive faculties of the 

 child, and to secure that training in the ex- 

 perimental knowledge of the action and re- 

 action of forces, cause and effect, etc., which 

 constitutes the method of scientific investi- 

 gation. We should, therefore, suggest, aj 



