54 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The flowers are given him and the child naturally loves them, but he 

 must be trained to see and taught to apppreciate their ever wonderful 

 growth and development. The savage who roamed over these hills 

 ages ago, had probably the same flowers ; and though we hear^much 

 of their "medicine men," and Longfellow tells us: 



* * * "In even savage bosoms 

 There are longuigs, yearnings, strivingf? 

 For the good they comprehend not."' 



We do not know that they ever attained any scientific botanical 

 knowledge. Unaided nature will not accomplish the work. We 

 talk of geniuses, and often refer to the lives of Aristotle, Linnseus, 

 Agassiz, Thoreau and Gra}', as botanists whom nature has specially 

 endowed. But if we look into their early history, we find there was 

 a guiding hand in the home that turned their feet into these delight- 

 ful paths, which to them were often steep and rugged. There is a 

 responsibility resting upon parents in this matter of early guidance. 

 A very little judicious instruction in plant study at the beginning, 

 may mold all the futuie life. It is not necessary that parents 

 should be able to recognize and name all of our native plants, in 

 order to become competent instructors to their children, but that 

 they should study our more common plants, and know how they 

 grow, is desirable. A very hopeful sign of the times is the forma- 

 tion of adult classes in neighborhoods, for the purpose of reviewing 

 the elements of knowledge, without which knowledge all progress in 

 study is impossible. We are never too old to learn. It is not a 

 difficult matter to acquire the rudiments of botany. Parents and 

 children often make great progress in studying together, and when 

 we consider the great assistance thus given in keeping busy hands 

 and active brains in healthful exercise, especially during the summer 

 vacations, we wonder that so helpful an educator should be over- 

 looked. The methods adopted in plant study must depend upon the 

 individuals pursuing it, keeping constantly in mind that educating is 

 not cramming. The mind must be made to act for itself. Even an 

 adult may go through with the test books in botany, completing a 

 prescribed herbarium, and yet know very little of the science of 

 plants ; with no real love for the work that shall stimulate him to 

 pursue it farther. One plant studied in such a way as to awaken a 

 desire to continue the work with others, will do more to lay the 

 foundation for an education in flowers than an entire text book 

 examined in a cursory manner. Having studied one flower, every 

 other becomes to us a new treasure, containing some hidden mys- 



