PREFACE. 



WHEN the editor was engaged in teaching he found in- 

 superable objections to the study of Botany with his 

 pupils, from the long catalogue of scientific names 

 with which the elementary treatises on that subject 

 were mostly made up. The common method of study- 

 ing Botany in our schools has ever appeared to him 

 absurd, imposing on scholars, a most burdensome 

 drudgery, and calculated to create perfect abhorrence 

 for that branch of knowledge. He considers it nearly 

 as absurd as it would be to give the student in history 

 a catalogue of all the emperors, kings, dukes, &c. 

 from the creation of the world to the present time, 

 to be carefully committed to memory in chronological 

 order. Who could endure the sight of such a mon- 

 strous array of arbitrary names; or who would have 

 the memory and resolution to perform such a task! 

 But place before the student a judicious work on histo- 

 ry, prepared as such works usually 'are, and the study 

 becqmes a most useful and delightful one. The names 

 of distinguished individuals are learned, from their con- 

 nexion with the various events of history, as there is 

 occasion to know them. They are made familiar 

 without effort, and, as it were, without a single thought 

 upon the subject. 



