LITERARY NOTICES. 



37i 



are two factors in the case, a subject to be 

 presented and a mental organism to be af- 

 fected, and that the latter, instead of being 

 of small account comparatively, is in reality 

 the first and principal thing ? Botany, like 

 the other sciences, can be so presented as 

 to stupefy the mind instead of awakening it. 

 Book-science and scientific books, as gener- 

 ally used in schools, are as often baneful as 

 beneficial ; they are merely new resources 

 for loading down the memory with verbal 

 acquisitions. The overshadowing influence, 

 in education, of language which is learned 

 entirely from books, and is mainly an exer- 

 cise of pure memory upon arbitrary signs 

 and empirical rules, has so determined the 

 habits of education that the sciences have 

 been forced into the same method of acqui- 

 sition, and the absurd practice still prevails 

 of acquiring them by memorizing the con- 

 tents of books. Even in botany, where the 

 objects treated of are everywhere over- 

 head, underfoot, by the way-side, in the gar- 

 dens, fields, yards, and even in the house, 

 soliciting the attention and kindling the ad- 

 miration continually we have still the pre- 

 posterous habit of studying the subject by 

 committing book-lessons in the school-room. 

 To begin botany in this way with children 

 is worse than an absurdity, it is an educa- 

 tional crime. It violates the law of the 

 mind, by making them learn in a forced and 

 unnatural way that which should be acquired 

 in an attractive and natural way ; and, by in- 

 ducing indifference or actual repulsion, it 

 defeats rather than promotes the true objects 

 of education. 



Nor is the case at all helped where the 

 author begins with a general injunction to 

 study the objects themselves, and then leaves 

 the pupil to make his own way without guid- 

 ance, or, in attempting to guide him, puts 

 him on a false track. This is the sin of Dr. 

 Masters. He puts the beginner at the most 

 complex work of botany the first thing. It 

 is the old story of commencing to pick flow- 

 ers to pieces, " to ascertain of what parts 

 they are constituted, their number, their 

 shape, in what manner they are pieced to- 

 gether, whether they are separate or joined 

 together, what is their relative size and posi- 

 tion in regard to one another, and so forth." 

 The object is to reach classification at the ear- 

 liest moment, so that the child can begin to 



name flowers and show off his botanical ac- 

 complishments. Although professedly writ- 

 ing for beginners, Dr. Masters tacitly assumes 

 them to be adults, and capable of grasping at 

 first the generalized results of the science. 

 That he begins with the simplest flowers is 

 but little mitigation of his bad method. To 

 attack the most complex part of plant- 

 structure at the outset, using microscopes 

 and making dissections, however possible it 

 may be for matured minds, is neither possi- 

 ble for children, nor is it the true order in 

 which the science should be considered. 

 There is a wide range of observation of the 

 simpler parts of plants which are open to 

 easy inspection, and it is to these that the 

 beginner's attention should first be directed. 

 The earliest thing to be done is to cultivate 

 the art and the habit of observation, and 

 then the pupil will pass naturally to the 

 comparison of these simpler characters, and 

 thus advance imperceptibly to the higher 

 complexities of form and structure. This 

 course is equally necessitated by the order 

 of unfolding of the child's faculties, and by 

 the order of facts in the science itself. 



Science Primers. " Chemistry," by Prof. 

 Roscoe. " Physics," by Prof. Balfour 

 Stewart. D. Appleton & Co. 



In these little volumes the authors have 

 tried very hard to adapt the treatment of 

 their respective subjects to the juvenile ca- 

 pacity, and with very fair success. We 

 think them by no means perfect, but they 

 are probably better than any thing else of 

 the kind that can be got. They were pre- 

 pared for the English schools, and are the 

 result of the recent commendable effort to 

 infuse more of the scientific element into 

 general primary instruction. The Rev. W. 

 Tuckwell, an able advocate of this reform, 

 thus speaks of them in Nature : 



These little books illustrate an imper- 

 fectly-accepted truth, that systematic ele- 

 mentary teaching is a late and not an early 

 product of educational energy. The best 

 head-masters of our schools have discovered 

 the fallacy latent in our ancient belief that 

 the ablest men are required to teach the 

 oldest boys, and have, in one or two famous 

 cases, acted on their discovery. It is easy 

 for a young man fresh from university hon- 

 ors to pour his knowledge into minds which 



