SELECTION AND SEQUENCE OF MATERIAL. 319 



sit under the trees, they gather or care for or trample 

 on the flowers ; buildings, food, clothing, and fuel come 

 from plants. They are much more apt to observe plants 

 because they are stationary, and can be observed more 

 easily than the animals, and are more attractive than 

 the stones. So a fair amount of plant lore is part of 

 the stock of knowledge of most persons of average 

 intelligence and education. They usually know more 

 about plants than about animals, minerals, physics, or 

 chemistry. 



In our high schools, more attention has been given to 

 botany and to physics than to any or all other sciences. 

 The teacher with a high-school education is better pre- 

 pared to teach these in her school. 



Plants are cleaner and more attractive than animals, 

 are more easily obtained, more easily preserved in the 

 schoolroom, and, in general, are better for individual 

 study by each pupil. 



As has been said in the previous chapter, there is a 

 rich store of literature relating to plant life as compared 

 with that relating to other phases of nature ; hence 

 plant study correlates best with literature. The gross 

 structure of plants is much simpler than that of animals, 

 and can be more easily understood and described in lan- 

 guage. The forms and colors of plants are simpler 

 than those of animals, and more characteristic than 

 those of minerals. Hence plant study correlates most 

 readily with drawing and painting and moulding. 



For these reasons plants will usually be found much 

 the best for study when first introducing nature work 



