INTRODUCTION. X y 



the answers to which would in each case disclose the im- 

 portant characters of the plant described. The pupils 

 were supplied with copies of these questions schedules, as 

 he called them and answers were found to them by ex- 

 amining living plants. When a plant had been described 

 in writing by answering these questions, its schedule was 

 pinned fast to it, and it was the examination of the col- 

 lective work of a scholar, whether by the professor or by a 

 more advanced fellow-learner, that took the place of for- 

 mal recitation. Left in this way to be his own teacher, 

 and do his own thinking, the method is seen to be chiefly 

 one of self-education. 



Prof. Henslow prepared no elementary book upon bot- 

 any carrying out his method : the printed schedule he 

 used applied only to the flower, the most complex part of 

 the plant, and the attention of children was directed by it 

 chiefly to those features upon which orders depend in 

 classification. But, instead of confining the use of sched- 

 ules to the study of the flower, I have employed them 

 throughout the work. In the first three chapters, the 

 pupil is provided with leaf, stem, inflorescence, and flower- 

 schedules on which, guided by the questions, he writes 

 down the results of his observations. All the organs of 

 the plant, and all their important modifications, are stud- 

 ied in this way. The presence or absence of botanical 

 features that determine their place and rank among plants 

 is first noted ; and, when found, they are accurately and 

 concisely described. 



In Chapter IV the subject of classing plants accord- 

 ing to their natural affinities is entered upon. From the 

 beginning of his schedule-work the pupil has really been 

 classing plants in a limited way and without being aware 

 of it. But he is now led to discover that he has been all 

 the while using the principle on which the natural method 

 of classification is based, and that the mastery of Prof. 

 Henslow's flower-schedule has made the grouping of 



