1902 Editorial 16 



J 



local Natural History Clubs should be appealed to; and they 

 will be able and, we are sure, willing coadjutors in the 

 management of excursions. Each child should do some 

 direct observation, such as tracing the life-history of an 

 insect throughout its successive stages, and should mount 

 the stages ; find out upon what each feeds and what will 

 destroy each, and the duration of the metamorphoses. The 

 value of such work is inestimable, creating a power of doing 

 solitary research (for what each does alone and for the first 

 time is original research), and this gives character to be 

 attained in no other way. To grow any flower in its season, 

 and to write down its history from day to day, is Nature 

 Study enough for one child for three months, provided he 

 alone does the work. In this study teacher must progress 

 with pupil ; and if the teacher be the right man in the right 

 place, and have the same pupils through several years till 

 he leave his mark upon them, he has then had a chance 

 of giving his pupils something that deserves the name of 

 " education." 



\i/ \i/' \^ '\^ \^/ 



^ ^ -^ -^ .^ 



The explanation of the phenomenon we term Heredity is 

 a matter to which biologists are devoting much attention at 

 the present time. Of all the problems of biology this is per- 

 haps the most fascinating, and therefore, as one would expect, 

 many theories have from time to time been formulated to 

 account for the facts observed. But modern research has 

 demonstrated that we are still far from a full understanding 

 of the phenomenon, and it still remains a wide field for ex- 

 periment and observation. The average man associates 

 heredity chiefly with the animal kingdom, but the question 

 is equally interesting from the side of the plant world. 

 Moreover, while comparatively few individuals have the 

 opportunity of carrying out the necessary experiments on 

 animals, it is open to all who possess gardens and green- 

 houses to make very detailed notes of the variations and 

 hereditary characters in plants. Our object in drawing 

 attention to the subject here is to stimulate the interest of 

 botanists in the problem, in the hope that some of our 

 readers may be induced to first make themselves acquainted 



