SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS. 307 



JScience Monthly "is not real or intrinsic in the conditions of the 

 case ; but, as we have had occasion again ana again to notice, it comes 

 from the stupid ignorance and fussy meddlesomeness of parents, who 

 bully the teachers at every deviation from the 'horrid grind' of 

 book lessons and recitations in the schools. The fact is, if we 

 ever get the study of nature in the schools, it can only be by 

 breaking down the superstitions by which they are dominated; 

 the deadly order by which nature is kept out, and by a larger rec- 

 ognition of individual aptitudes, and much freer opportunity for 

 the observation and study of natural objects." 



In this connection, it is well to remember that the average child 

 has what Martin calls "the only absolutely necessary faculties for 

 the scientific investigator," viz. : "love of his work, perseverance 

 and truthfulness." If the child has a mind capable of making an 

 observation, and retaining the fact, the garden and the farm give 

 him unlimited opportunities. His field of study is as wide as 

 God's animate creation, nor need the child nor the man be an 

 original thinker in order to get good out of a course of study that 

 can be formulated and practically applied in our schools, by a 

 series of observations and experiments upon natural objects sup- 

 plied by the farm and garden. 



As Prof. Martin, of Johns Hopkins' University, says: "That 

 an army to attain its best success needs, indeed, that every 

 man be brave and loyal ; but it is b} r no means requisite that 

 every soldier be a Brigadier-General. So in the army of science 

 there is place for soldiers of all ranks and capabilities, and at any 

 rate we know this, that nature reveals her secrets, which are her 

 rewards, on no system of purchase or favoritism. What a person 

 deserves, that he gets. Every drummer boy who enters her 

 service carries the marshal's baton in his pocket." 



A course of study that shall start with the drummer boy of the 

 district school, and end with the field-marshal at the head of the 

 scientific department of a univ3rsity, is the dream of the present, 

 the reality of the future. 



Botany, as taught in the better high schools, starts with the 

 planting of the seed, and watching its development by observing 

 the changes as it germinates and grows, sections being made, 

 and microscopical examinations conducted in the class room in all 

 stages of its growth to the mature leaf and hard woody fibre. 

 Plants are analyzed, and all plants from which seeds can be 

 gathered are available for class use. In a city, where can a 

 sufficiency of plants for class use be obtained, if not in the garden 

 and orchard? I believe that the future will develop the fact that 

 a school in which botany is rightly taught, must have access to 

 the garden. 



The simple analysis of plants is elementary work on which 

 pupils could be profitably employed a part of the time during 

 their seventh and eighth grade work, or at the ages of twelve to 



