6 PROSERPINA. 



learned reader, and the unlearned I need not vex with so 

 much as one: but, in such cases, since I could only take 

 refuge in the untranslated word by leaving other Greek or 

 Latin words also untranslated, and the nomenclature still 

 entirely senseless, and I do not choose to do this, there 

 is only one other course open to me, namely, to substitute 

 boldly, to my own pupils, other generic names for the 

 plants thus faultfully hitherto titled. 



As I do not do this for my own pride, but honestly for 

 my reader's service, I neither question nor care how far 

 the emendations I propose may be now or hereafter 

 adopted. I shall not even name the cases in which they have 

 been made for the serious reason above specified ; but even 

 shall mask those which there was real occasion to alter, by 

 sometimes giving new names in cases where there was no 

 necessity of such kind. Doubtless I shall be accused of 

 doing myself what I violently blame in others. I do so ; 

 but with a different motive of which let the reader judge 

 as he is disposed. The practical result will be that the 

 children who learn botany on the system adopted in this 

 book will know the useful and beautiful names of plants 

 hitherto given, in all languages ; the useless and ugly ones 

 they will not know. And they will have to learn one 

 Latin name for each plant, which, when differing from the 

 common one, I trust may yet by some scientific persona 

 be accepted, and with ultimate advantage. 



The learning of the one Latin name as, for instance, 

 \ Grarnen striatum I hope will be accurately enforced al- 



