vi PREFACE 



soon revealed upon any attempt to ascertain the depth 

 and reality of the pupil's information. 



For this reason but few illustrations are used, lest 

 both teacher and pupil, seeing how things appear in an 

 illustration, may consider that "they know all about 

 that," and may be tempted to shirk the effort of seeing 

 the natural object for themselves. 



In schools where the subject is taken up for the first 

 time, it will probably be found prudent to do a consider- 

 able amount of work before attempting anything like a 

 formal school garden. To this end a great deal of useful 

 work can be done by growing plants in pots or boxes. 

 Ideas for the school garden will soon evolve themselves 

 from this work. 



It must be clearly understood that the book is not 

 arranged in such a manner as to afford a course of 

 instruction to be taken in the precise order in which 

 it is written. In work of this kind some skill and 

 judgment are required to adjust matters, so that 

 the teaching shall be so distributed as to proceed in 

 an even manner from week to week, and also that 

 there shall be no unnecessary delays, as may arise 

 from waiting for some experiment or demonstration 

 to mature. 



In the appendix, attempts are made to indicate suit- 

 able courses of work according to the time of year at 

 which the work is begun, but in this there is ample 

 scope for the exercise of judgment on the part of 

 the teacher. Nor are the exercises put forward as 

 final; they are only indicative of a general course 

 of study, and the intention is that the teacher shall 



