oF 
the bean plant gains by pushing through the earth with 
this hooped stem. 
I hope some of you may guess correctly. But even 
if you have not been successful in naming the cause of 
the bean plant’s humped back, at least you have been 
working your brains; and every time you do this, you 
help to keep them in good order. 
If you let your brain lie idle, and allow your teacher 
or your book to do for you not only all the asking of 
questions, but also all the thinking-out of answers, it 
will get as dull and rusty and good for nothing as a 
machine that is laid by for a long time gets dull and 
rusty and good for nothing. 
I should be sorry to think that any of you children 
were carrying about in your heads any such rusty, good- 
for-nothing brains. So if you wish to keep them bright 
and clean, and in good working order, you must try to 
do your own thinking. 
And now, hoping you have tried to guess for yourselves 
the reason of this crooked back, I will explain it to you. 
But first handle carefully the tip of one of the upper 
leaves on the larger bean plant. You see how delicate 
this is. 
Then feel how firm and hard and tough is the green 
hoop of the plant which is just breaking through the 
earth. 
Now suppose the bean plant had grown straight up 
into the air, would not its uppermost part have been the 
delicate leaf tips ? 
Can you not see that these would have been too frail 
to work their way uninjured through the earth ? 
DANA’S PLANTS. — 7 
