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THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



Commonplace and Common Sense 

 Knowledge. 



In our laboratory at ArcAdiA we 

 have been growing luxuriantly for 

 nearly three years a plant that has 

 attracted much attention or perhaps 



BUDS AND BLOOM OF TEA. 



I should say that we have attracted 

 much attention to it. Every visitor 

 has been requested to give the name 

 of that plant. In three years hun- 

 dreds of adults and school children 

 have been questioned. Thus far not 

 one has been able to give the name. 

 Recently it was in beautiful bloom 

 with a profusion of expanding buds 

 that made it wonderfully attractive. 

 We believe that this one plant alone 

 has been a good example of the cry- 

 ing need of giving information es- 

 pecially to school children, and to 

 •everyone definite notions of common- 

 place things. Every child and every 

 adult knows the tea plant from the 



utilitarian point of view, yet we have 

 found that no visitor has practical 

 knowledge of it, nor one that has ever 

 heard that it is grown successfully in 

 the United States, nor of the possibil- 

 ity to cultivate it here on a commercial 

 scale. But tbat topic we reserve for 

 a future article. Nature should not 

 be known only through the mouth and 

 the stomach. In itself tea is an es- 

 thetic plant. From its leaves is made 

 a cheering beverage. Undoubtedly 

 many school children can speak in- 

 telligently about the cities and the 

 rivers of China, while they have not 

 the slightest knowledge of the appear- 

 ance of the tea plant, China's principal 

 product, whether it is an herb, a shrub 

 or a tree. It is a shrub that may be 

 grown readily in any household. It 

 is not hardy, but it will bear consid- 

 erable cold. In the laboratory aquaria 

 standing near the tea plant have been 

 filled with ice, and iron water pipes 

 only a few feet away from this plant 

 have been frozen and have burst, yet 

 the tea plant has bloomed profusely 

 notwithstanding the intense cold. 



It is a regrettable fact that the utili- 

 tarian point of view has so gained the 

 ascendency. Before a number of 

 Teachers' Institutes in various parts 

 of the country I have requested the 

 teachers to form a mental picture of 

 the plant that I would name. When 

 all were in readiness, after a pause of 

 a few seconds, I said, "Onion," only 

 to find upon inquiry that every person 

 in the audience had had vision of the 

 edible portion, never of the plant as a 

 whole, nor of its beautiful flower. It 

 would be safe to say that nine-tenths 

 of the teachers, especially in city 

 schools, have no knowledge whatever 

 of the onion plant, and that even a 

 larger proportion or a hundred per 

 cent have no knowledge of the beauti- 

 ful blossom. It is not unusual in city 

 schools to find both teacher and pupil 

 totally ignorant of the commonplace 

 plants that are used every day for 

 food. To have at least some of these 

 common plants grown in every school 

 would be valuable and practical. 

 A protected portion of a window 

 on the sunny side could easily 

 be arranged so that the plants could 

 be kept there throughout the year. 

 Children and teachers should not only 

 know the tea plant, but they should 

 know the coffee plant and others 



