6 2 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ing entry for the journal : "The episperm, on the under surface of Ter- 

 tius, is all black, and has split, leaving a space the shape of an equilateral 

 triangle, with the apex pointing to the convex edge of the cotyledons." 

 In the summer, when flowers could be obtained from the woods in 

 abundance, the child made collections of ovaries and ovules, and was 

 never tired of finding the latter asleep in their beds, in so many differ- 

 ently shaped houses. At this time the static considerations were al- 

 lowed to predominate, and the child rather forgot the function of the 

 embryo seeds so much so that, upon seeing some small pieces of ice ly- 

 ing in half a musk-melon, she said that these were like the ovules in an 

 ovary. At the beginning of the second year, the study of plant-growth 

 was resumed with seven hyacinths, that received appropriate names, 

 as seven sisters. The first lessons in written expression coincided with 

 the beginning of this new study ; for now the child was allowed to 

 write the plant-journal herself. The exercise was complex. The child 

 first examined the hyacinths, and noted whether anything had trans- 

 pired since the last observation. She then framed a spoken sentence, 

 in which such an event was accurately described. She then dictated 

 the writing of this sentence as a whole, which she was afterward to 

 copy. During this dictation, some knowledge of spelling was inci- 

 dentally acquired ; for the child was led to spell by sound, and without 

 reference to silent letters. The words she had not yet seen. Finally, 

 when fairly at work at the writing, the meaning of the sentence was 

 temporai-ily ignored, and attention closely concentrated upon the forms 

 of the letters, and no mercy shown to inaccurate imitation of them. 

 Thus, one day she entered the observation that Blanche, in a blue 

 glass, had grown much more vigorously than Aura, in a dark one ; 

 and a blue glass was given to the less favored sister, in the hope that 

 she would improve. She noted that the tips of the white roots were 

 gray and conoid in shape (making the observation herself independ- 

 ently), and was allowed to demonstrate the function of these tips by 

 cutting one off and seeing the growth of that root arrested. On another 

 day she first discovered, then described, then wrote down, that the first 

 broad leaves of Blanche had split open, showing two others at right 

 angles to them. This was her first perception of this remarkable law 

 of phyllotaxy, and she herself illustrated it by making two loops with 

 the thumb and finger of each hand, and making them intersect each 

 other. The previous acquisition of mathematical conceptions was con- 

 stantly shown to facilitate and render precise her observations of com- 

 plex objects. 



It was rather as a concession to a prevailing prejudice that at this 

 time the child was taught to read. This study, usually made of the 

 most importance, was held for this child to be quite subordinate and 

 easy, and little stress laid upon it. The child was allowed to follow 

 her own inclination, to divine the subject of the chapter from the pict- 

 ure at the head of it, and, to a considerable extent, the words in each 



