62 NATURE STUDY AND AGRICULTURE 



observe the exact sequence of events in a germinating seed, 

 but it is entirely out of place to insist that a seed does not 

 " germinate" because this function is restricted to spores. \ 

 It is essential to see that most stems turn toward the light 

 and most roots turn toward the earth, if a curve is necessary 

 to secure these directions, but to insist upon a form of 

 statement that describes with exactness the response to 

 the stimulus of light and of gravity is a useless analysis at 

 this stage of education. Total results are to be considered 

 primarily, and the factors which contribute to them cannot 

 be analyzed too critically, else teachers acquire so much 

 deadly dullness that they destroy all enthusiasm. 



This demand for exactness that kills enthusiasm ap- 

 pears more in connection with terminology, perhaps, than 

 in a needlessly close analysis of the facts. Technical terms 

 are used to secure exactness, and in study of the sciences 

 they are absolutely necessary, but in nature study they 

 have small place, for the accuracy they imply is not de- 

 manded. To elaborate, for example, the differences be- 

 tween a rhizome and a tuber is perhaps necessary at 

 some stage of progress, but all the student of nature study 

 needs to know is that they are both thickened, underground 

 parts of plants, to be called by whatever name happens to be 

 convenient. 



This is not a plea for inaccuracy either in observation 

 or in terminology, but a plea for the salvation of enthusiasm. 

 Anything that would diminish it must be avoided, and 

 experience has shown that technical exactness does this 

 very thing for the first contacts with nature. General 

 ideas, impressions if you please, come first, and when they 

 have been established their analysis with its terminology 



