LITERARY NOTICES. 



649 



preliminary work, digesting his observa- 

 tions, and making the facts bis own, until 

 he becomes intelligent in regard to the 

 common varieties of plant-forms and struct- 

 ures. It is because the text-books of bot- 

 any hitherto in use fail to provide for and 

 to enforce this thoroughness of introduc- 

 tory study of the characters of plants fail 

 in the very groundwork of the subject 

 that the present plan of study has been 

 prepared." 



Miss Youraans's books, therefore, bear 

 the same relation to the vegetable kingdom 

 that an art-gallery " guide " bears to a col- 

 lection of pictures : in connection with them 

 it is valuable and important; apart from 

 them, of little use. To those who wish to 

 read botany, or to acquire it by the usual 

 method of lesson-learning, her books will 

 be of small service ; but, to such as desire 

 to know the science itself in its facts and 

 principles at first hand, and to become so 

 intelligent in regard to vegetable forms that 

 they can read them as they walk in the 

 fields, like printed pages, the method of 

 study that she has arranged will be invalu- 

 able. The object that she wishes to secure 

 being mainly educational the cultivation 

 of independent observation and reason, as 

 applied to objects of experience she insists 

 that the study must be commenced early, 

 while the childish mind is in its perceptive 

 stage and peculiarly alive to external things. 

 The First Book is therefore adapted to 

 young children and beginners, and deals 

 only with those readily-observed characters 

 of plants which can be examined with the 

 naked eye. The Second Book begins where 

 the First left off, and goes more thoroughly 

 into the work ; the use of magnifying-glasses 

 and microscopes is now commenced, and 

 observation becomes careful and complete. 

 The schedule system is carried out in its 

 application to the flower, and " the pupil is 

 introduced to the leading principles by 

 which plants are arranged, and set to mak- 

 ing groups of those that most nearly re- 

 semble each other in important characters. 

 He is here called upon to do his own think- 

 ing, and to form opinions as to the amount 

 of resemblance between different plants. 

 He has to decide whether a certain group 

 of characters presented by this specimen is 

 most like one or another group presented 



by other plants, and this leads on to the 

 comparison and estimate of the relations of 

 different groups with each other. It is thus 

 that the discipline of the judgment and 

 reason begins to be secured at an early 

 stage of the study, and is continued with 

 more and more completeness as it goes on." 

 A great deal is said by thoughtful edu- 

 cators about the need of the more direct 

 and thorough study of Nature, but the dif- 

 ficulty has hitherto been, how to make it 

 generally possible and practicable. These 

 little Books of Botany show how it may be 

 done, and provide for the doing of it. " They 

 are guides to self-education, and are adapted 

 for use in school or out, by teachers and 

 mothers, whether they know any thing of 

 the subject or not, and by pupils without 

 any assistance at all." They set the pupil 

 to work, guide him in his course, and bring 

 him face to face continually with difficulties 

 which it will require the exercise of inde- 

 pendent judgment to deal with. Mistakes 

 will of course be made, and effort will be 

 necessary to correct them, but this is the 

 sole condition on which the judgment of 

 things is to be educated. The value of the 

 study of natural history classifications as a 

 means of higher mental discipline not in 

 books, but in the objects themselves which 

 illustrate them has been long recognized, 

 and botany unquestionably affords the best 

 facilities for obtaining it. Upon this point 

 Miss Youmans remarks : " Its discipline is 

 corrective of the most common defects of 

 education, and is eminently applicable in 

 forming judgments upon the oi'dinary affairs 

 of life. Carelessness in observation, loose- 

 ness in the application of words, hasty in- 

 ferences from partial data, and lack of 

 method in the contents of the mind, are 

 common faults even among the cultivated, 

 and it is precisely these faults that the study 

 of botanical science, by the method here 

 proposed, is calculated to remedy. That 

 the habit of systematic arrangement, in 

 which the study of botanical classification 

 affords so admirable a training, is equally 

 valuable in methodizing all the results of 

 thought, is testified to by one of the most 

 intellectual and influential men of our time, 

 Mr. John Stuart Mill. He was a regular 

 field botanist, and cultivated the subject 

 with a view to its important mental advan- 



