A PLAN OF WORK. 37 



are examining- an insect or a worm. If we find an insect, 

 we may presently refer it to the Lepidoptera, and then to 

 the butterflies; but when it comes to distinguishing be- 

 tween the various Vanessas with their curious punctua- 

 tion-marks, the matter grows more serious, and we are 

 compelled to obtain a book more restricted in scope than 

 a zoology, and, indeed, than most entomologies. 



As a result of this, it becomes necessary for him who 

 would accurately study any department of nature to 

 limit himself early to a small field. One will choose, for 

 instance, dragon-flies, and by devoting years to them 

 will become a specialist and an authority in that depart- 

 ment. It is the tendency of the times to produce special- 

 ists. 



Many persons, however, are not willing to restrict 

 themselves to so narrow a field of study. They prefer to 

 range freely over mountain and along stream; and hav- 

 ing acquired the power to analyze a flower or determine 

 a mineral, they leave the one to nod and smile on its 

 dewy stem in undissected beauty, and the other to 

 sparkle in the sunlight, instead of crackling in the reduc- 

 ing flame of a compound blowpipe. Yet we must have 

 strict scientists, and Ave honor the men who for the sake 

 of expanding the world's knowledge are willing to con- 

 fine their own researches to a narrow field. 



For those, then, who are old enough to pursue a sys- 

 tematic course, we have briefly outlined a plan which 

 may be followed in any department of natural science. 

 It consists in first obtaining a general view of the whole 

 field, and then in learning its successive subdivisions, 

 until analysis is complete. 



The rest of you, and especially you, my little folk of 

 ten years old and under, may, for the present, leave the 

 big books unopened, and the Latin names unlearned. 



