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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nized as the artificial system. Afterward the flower was deposed 

 from its supremacy, and all the characters of plants, of which forms 

 and outlines are leading ones, were taken into account in grouping 

 them, and this is named the natural system. I should rather say that 

 to make a fanciful idea predominant in a method of study is unnatu- 

 ral, while the truly natural method is that which conforms to the re- 

 quirements of the mind and the progress of the science to he studied, 

 and which will therefore lead to the best acquaintance with the truth 

 of nature. 



Again, after objecting to the early study of plants in their most 

 simplified forms by children, Mrs. Jacobi says : " But with plants 

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

 that these tremendous ideas make a profound impression on the child's 

 mind ; and this impression may be best secured by watching the con- 

 tinuous growth of a plant from the seed." I confess to having read 

 this passage with no little surprise. It may be well at times to strike 

 o^it from the beaten track, and take independent views, but some 

 things are, nevertheless, established. Mrs. Jacobi here ignores the 

 latest progress in the methods of botanical study for minds of all 

 grades. The plan of beginning the study of the vegetable kingdom 

 by inquiries concerning life-processes is now discredited and aban- 

 doned by the best botanical authors and teachers. It is the old method 

 of studying physiological botany before descriptive botany, or the 

 inner mysteries of plant organization before the external characters 

 and relations of plant-structures by which they are known and classi- 

 fied. In his botanical text-book, published more than forty years ago, 

 Professor Gray began with the idea of life and growth, but, in the 

 series of botanical text-books he is now preparing, the first volume is 

 devoted to the study of the external aspects of plants. He recognizes 

 that this should come first, saying, " It will furnish the needful prepa- 

 ration to those who proceed to the study of vegetable physiology 

 and anatomy." The reasons for adopting this order are conclusive, 

 but they are strongest in the case of beginners ; and yet Mrs. Jacobi 

 adopts the old plan condemned by experience, in the case of a child 

 five years old. If there is any truth in mental science, or any value 

 in the experience of practical teachers, there is in childhood a special 

 intellectual fitness for acquiring a knowledge of the external characters 

 of organisms, and an unfitness for grasping and comprehending the 

 obscure and difficult operations of life as manifested by these organ- 

 isms. Nor can the reason which Mrs. Jacobi offers for the course 

 taken be for a moment accepted as sound. She would introduce a lit- 

 tle child to the study of plants through the grand gateway of evolu- 

 tion, to impress it at the start with the tremendous conception of 

 unfolding life. It is proper, and I have recommended it in my little 

 book for beginners, to make the germination of seeds an experimental 



