302 THE EDUCATIONAL CLAIMb OF BOTANY. 



tial and valuable, while, at the same time, it is capable of task- 

 ing the highest intelligence through a lifetime of study. 



V. The means are thus furnished for organizing object- 

 teaching into a systematic method, so that it may be pursued 

 definitely and constantly through a course of successively 

 higher and more comprehensive exercises. 



VI. Botany is unrivalled in the scope it offers to the culti- 

 vation of the descriptive powers, as its vocabulary is more co- 

 pious, precise, and well-settled than that of any other of the 

 natural sciences. Upon this point most important in its edu- 

 cational aspect Prof. Arthur Henfrey has well remarked : 



" The technical language of Botany, as elaborated by Linnaeus and 

 liis school, has long been the admiration of logical and philosophical 

 writers, and has been carried to great perfection. Every word has its 

 definition, and can convey one notion to those who have once mastered 

 the language. The technicalities, therefore, of botanical language, 

 which are vulgarly regarded as imperfections, and as repulsive to the 

 inquirer, are, in reality, the very marks of its completeness, and, far 

 from offering a reason for withholding the science from ordinary educa- 

 tion, constitute its great recommendation as a method of training in 

 accuracy of expression and habits of describing definitely and unequivo- 

 cally the observations made by the senses. The acquisition of the terms 

 applied to the different parts of plants exercises the memory, while the 

 mastery of the use of the adjectives of terminology cultivates, in a most 

 beneficial manner, a habit of accuracy and perspicuity in the use of 

 language." 



Botanical language is the most perfect that is applied to 

 the description of external nature, but its accuracy is not the 

 accuracy of geometry, the terms of which call up the same 

 sharply-defined invariable conceptions. But the characters of 

 natural objects are not such rigid and exact repetitions of each 

 other. Nature is constantly varying her types. The applica- 

 tion of botanical terms is, therefore, not a mere mechanical act 

 of the mind, but involves the exercise of judgment. 



VII. It is congenial with the pleasurable activity of child- 

 hood, and makes that activity subservient to mental ends. 

 It enforces rambles and excursions in quest of specimens, 

 and thus tends to relieve the sedentary confinement of the 



