176 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



the strange marking, but he had looked and seen it for himself. The 

 only way, it seemed to me, to treat such an argument as this was, to 

 change the subject of conversation, and this I did, a slight smile of in- 

 credulity letting my playmate know that he had not wholly imposed 

 upon me. That very afternoon I happened to pass a field of oats, and, 

 remembering the assertion of the mysterious markings, I determined 

 to put the question of their reality to the proof of observation at once> 

 and for altogether. I must confess, however, it was only after a men- 

 tal struggle that I brought myself to cross the fence into the field ; 

 for the assertion seemed to me utterly absurd, and I had not then 

 learned that, rightly taken, there is no such thing as " being made a 

 fool of." But what were my amazement and confusion to find, on the 

 very first leaf I examined, a capital B as clearly marked as if it had 

 been impressed with a die ! Quickly gathering and examining other 

 leaves, I found on all of them a marking, in some a mere blur, on 

 others clear and distinct as I had found it on the first leaf. Straight- 

 way occurred the questions : What really is this mark? What causes 

 it ? I stood among the growing oats, so the answer was neither far 

 to seek nor difficult to find ; but I have never forgotten it, for no 

 teacher told it to me — I found it out for myself. I rediscovered the so- 

 lution of the mystery of this leaf -signature, and, although it must have 

 been discovered and rediscovered thousands of times before, yet I en- 

 joyed all the deep delight of discovery — a delight which never cloys, 

 a pleasure which never palls. What is more, I soon found that my 

 eyes had, as it were, been opened ; I found that I could see many 

 other strange things about leaves which, till then, had escaped my no- 

 tice, and I found that I possessed the key to their solution. 



But, if I urge on you the teaching of natural science, I also recog- 

 nize the difficulties you will encounter if you accept my advice. You 

 will have to teach from the actual objects, a method utterly and radi- 

 cally different from the text-book instruction to which you are accus- 

 tomed. You will for a time have to submit to the adverse criticisms 

 of those parents who judge of a child's progress, not by its mental 

 growth, but merely by its increase of skill in the art of recognizing 

 the marks that represent certain sounds, and of repeating those sounds, 

 an art too often confused with reading. You will, some of you, have 

 to' struggle with classes not too large to inform by telling but far too 

 large to educate by training. But overcome the first difficulty, over- 

 come yourselves, and you will find the others will lessen day by day, 

 and will soon disappear altogether, the little remaining of them being 

 lost sight of in the increase of brightness which the new study will 

 bring to the life of the school-room. 



