272 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



Plants also produce flowers, from which comes the 

 fruit, and from this the seed. These take no part in 

 nourishing the plant. Their use is to enable it to give 

 rise to new individuals, which increase the numbers of 

 that kind of plant ; to take the place of the parent in due 

 time, and keep up the stock, that is, to reproduce and 

 perpetuate the species. So the flower, with its parts, 

 the fruit and the seed, are called the plant's ORGANS OF 



REPRODUCTION. 



Now this is very pleasant reading for grown 

 people, who know something about the subject, 

 are slightly familiar with the conceptions of nu- 

 trition, heredity, and genesis, and have learned, 

 however rudely, to classify their notions. But 

 for boys and girls who begin botany at the age 

 when it ought to be begun, this would be neither 

 pleasant nor profitable. If set to learn the above 

 passage by rote, in the ordinary way, they would 

 be likely to find it irksome, and would certainly 

 fail to gain accurate ideas corresponding to all the 

 expressions employed in it. And, above all, those 

 who learned their lesson would have taken the 

 first step towards acquiring the pernicious habit 

 of accepting statements upon authority. If ques- 

 tioned concerning their grounds for believing that 

 the organs of vegetation in a plant are its root, 

 stem, and leaves, they would perforce reply that 



