STUDIES AND FRIENDS AT AUCHLEVEN. 247 



could not pluck the stars from the sky, he could pluck the 

 plants from the ground ! 



That was the answer of the practical philosopher 

 John always was. It also contains one of the chief pleas 

 for the prosecution of outdoor nature studies by the young. 

 In these, the student can examine, handle, and dissect with 

 his own fingers the subjects of his study, and his work con- 

 sists in real handling of the objects he deals with not 

 in matters of distant sight, where the hands can never touch 

 the things investigated, as in astronomy, nor in matters of 

 faith, as in history and geography. It embodies the sound 

 principle which commends such subjects of practical re- 

 search as important elements in early education, that by 

 their means the whole senses by eye, ear, nose, mouth 

 touch and hand are separately and jointly exercised along 

 with the intellect, under skilled guidance, for scientific ends 

 and careful induction. 



John's new pleasure was to conquer the flora of his old 

 haunts along the Gadie. As Charles Black explains, this 

 stream is not botanically remarkable, unless for its abundant 

 strong-smelling herbs, such as Meadow sweet and the like, 

 whose odour still sends his heart back to Gadie side. John 

 soon explored all its windings. He went up the pretty dell 

 behind Castle Lickleyhead then a picturesque ivied ruin, 

 now a modern shooting-lodge which adorns and cen- 

 tralises the view there, with Hermit Seat in the background. 

 He climbed the northern front of Benachie and its sister 

 peaks, from which he brought " a tall kind of girse with a 

 big nodding head which they all laughed at " of course, 

 for " wha wu'd bother himsel' wi' a wheen girses ? " as they 

 sagely said. 



