SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 539 



blossoms, nods modestly. The petals owe their attractiveness largely to the 

 deeper colored veins that traverse them. A single blossom scarce lasts a day, 

 but they are always in a group, with later buds to develop. The blood-root, 

 Sanguinariaaria Canadensis, sends up a broad, succulent leaf, from the axle 

 of which a single flower stem is throAvn up, surmounted with a pure white 

 blossom which loses its petals very soon after once fully open. 



Then there is the adder's tougue, Erithronium Americanum, the earliest 

 member of the lily family that we find in the woods. It is quite lily-like in its 

 appearance, yellow and nodding. Occasionally we may find the white species, 

 which on account of its rarity in Michigan is considered a prize. 



But the most interesting spring flower study will be found in the violets, of 

 which we have a dozen or more species, each with so clearly defined character- 

 istics that a little child will recognize them. 



Then there are lessons to be learned in the skunk cabbage and Indian tur- 

 nip. What school-child does not recognize these plants, and base a vivid recol- 

 lection of their " strong points? " In our school, twenty years ago, to initiate 

 a new scholar into a complete understanding and appreciation of the peculiar 

 quality of the Indian turnip was a painless style of hazing, and once I recall 

 that our teacher received from his pupils a simple but well-remembered lesson 

 in botany, when we induced him to set his teeth into the root-stock of a wild 

 turnip, assuring him afterwards that it was good — to develop unusual lines in 

 the face. 



That rural school-teacher who does not know wild flowers and can not take 

 his school for a ramble in the woods a half-day in the week in spring time, and 

 teach them more than he can indoors in the same time, may well spend some 

 months in the study of simple systematic botany before continuing in the voca- 

 tion. And still while acting as school inspector for a township a few years ago, 

 I found not one teacher in the eleven that were engaged in the schools, that 

 knew the names and habits of the commonest flowers by the roadside, and 

 several of them doubted my word when I told the children of their schools that 

 the elm and maple trees bore early spring flowers. 



There is a wealth of enjoyment to all who have a spark of the love of nature 

 in them, if they will go out among the early buds and blossoms of the spring 

 time, and let their hearts swell with gratitude for the divine perfection which 

 may be found in every one of these delicate treasures snuggled so closely in the 

 bosom of nature, that to pluck them seems almost a sacrilege. 



Teaching to See. — From a spring number of the New York Tribune we 

 selected the following: 



One of the best means of preventing the too often disastrous desire of young 

 people in the country to join the crowds of the town is to lead them to appreci- 

 ate the far greater and more satisfying beauty of nature. Every teacher 

 should, each day of the present spring-time, give the pupils views into the mys- 

 teries of life all about them. Put some of the larger seeds to germinate upon 

 wet moss or cotton-batting or washed sand (to avoid the clamminess of clay or 

 loam). Dissect some as they advance, and let others go on to unfold first their 

 cotyledons and then their leaves. 



School Seeds and Plants. — Quartus A. Brother, whom we have before 

 quoted, wrote in the spring-time as follows: 



