OF NATURE STUDY. ~jj 



Matter of Nature Study^ 



INTRODUCTION TO PLANTS. 

 OUTLINE OF NATURE-STUDY WORK WITH PLANT LIFE. 



Children can be introduced to the study of plants as easily as to any other 

 subject. Just as they learn to know their playmates, so thej' may learn to know 

 their friends of the woods and fields. When they are interested in a plant because 

 of any feature of it, and ask "what it is?" the teacher should hasten to jfive 

 them a formal introduction. 



" Why, that is a Wake Robin, who lives in the woods over there," or " that 

 is iny Lad3''s Slipper, which was lost many years ago in the forest. 



A touch of reality is added by this personification, which is really more 

 strictly in accord with the truth than to consider a plant as so much dead matter. 

 'Fancy introducint;;' a chilii oi' fourteen \ears, or less, to a living' incarnation of 

 beauty in the terms of a dead language Cypripediuin pitbescens. 



The flower should be first treated and studied as a living thing, and after- 

 wards used as material for drawing lessons and for color study. In which is a 

 child more interested, a strip of yellow paper, one by two inches, or the yellow of 

 the Lady's S!i|iper ? And what if it is not pure color ? We never think of be- 

 ginning ail}- oilier study with the faultlessly perfect in every detail. At any rate, 

 the colors of flowers are never cheap. 



We may learn something from Nokomis in Longfellow's " Hiawatha." She 

 was grandmotlier and teacher to him. 



" Many things Nokomis taught him 

 Of the stars that shine in heaven ; 

 Showed him Ishkotniah, the comet, 

 Ishkooilah, with fiery tresses ; 

 Showeil the death-danie of the spirits. 

 Warriors with their plumes and war-clubs, 

 Flaring far away to northward 

 In the frost}' nights of winter ; 

 Showed the broad white road in heaven, 

 Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows, 

 Running straight across the heavens. 

 Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows." 



" Saw the rainbow in the heaven. 

 In the eastern sky, the rainbow. 

 Whispered, ' What is tha^, .\okomis? ' 

 And the good Nokomis answered : 

 ' 'Tis the heaven of fiowers you see there ; 

 All the wild-flowers of the forest, 

 All the lilies of the prairie, 

 W'hen on earth the)" fade and perish. 

 Blossom in that heaven above us.'" 



