7S o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE EAKLT STUDY OF PLANTS. 



By ELIZA A. YOUMANS. 



IN the interesting articles, in previous numbers of " The Popular 

 Science Monthly," entitled "An Experiment in Primary Educa- 

 tion," by Dr. Mary Putnam-Jacobi, she makes courteous reference to 

 my " First Book of Botany," while dissenting from certain points of 

 its method. The objections, I think, indicate a partial misunderstand- 

 ing of this method, and, as some of them have been made before and 

 as I have just reissued the plan of study as a volume of "Descriptive 

 Botany," in which the matters criticised remain unchanged, it seems 

 desirable that the erroneous impressions should be corrected. This is 

 the more needful, because of the weight of Mrs. Jacobi's authority in 

 what may be called human science, and because her objections, though 

 briefly stated, come as results of fresh study tested by careful and pro- 

 longed experiment. The chief points she makes are contained in the 

 following passage, which is quoted from pages 618 and 619 of the 

 September " Monthly " : 



" I suppose that most persons seriously interested in education are 

 acquainted with Miss Youmans's admirable little ' First Lessons in 

 Botany,' and the plea she makes for this science as a typical means of 

 training the observing powers of children. According to her plan, 

 the first object studied is the leaf and the pupil is brought at once, 

 not only to draw the leaf, but to fill out a schedule of description of 

 it. Much may be said in favor of this method, which proceeds from 

 the simple to the complex form, but it is by no means the only pos- 

 sible one ; the writing part of the scheme is, moreover, impossible 

 for a child who has not yet learned how to write. There is another 

 method which consists in seizing at once upon the most striking 

 aspect of the subject, and which shall make the most vivid impres- 

 sion upon the imagination. For this purpose the leaf is the least 

 useful, the flower the most. The earliest botanical classifications are 

 based upon the corolla, and, in accordance with a principle already 

 enunciated, a child may often best approach a science through the 

 series of ideas that attended its genesis. The conditions are different 

 for an adult, who requires to get the latest results ; the child's mind 

 is always remote from these, but often singularly near to the concep- 

 tions entertained by the first observers. Again, it is unnatural to enter 

 upon the beautiful world of plants by the study of forms and outlines 

 which is much better pursued when abstracted from all other cir- 

 cumstances, as in models of pure mathematical figures. But with 

 plants comes a new idea that of life, of change, of evolution. It is 

 fitting that this tremendous idea make a profound impression on the 

 child's mind ; and this impression may be best secured by watching the 



