CHAP, x Suggestions for Further Study 191 



tion, helped of course by the microscope ; and thus the 

 student can work on, his scientific progress being in pro- 

 portion to the degree in which he finds he can ask reason- 

 able ordinary child-like questions ; a degree which he must 

 not be discouraged to find probably at first inverse to that 

 at which he could " get up " a large amount of ready-prepared 

 information upon the subject. In the same way let him 

 ask questions of the stem, and devise, even if he cannot 

 always execute, experiments. How is the stem constructed? 

 will be best understood if he does not begin with the book, 

 but by scraping and slicing at a few twigs of laburnum, ash, 

 lime, and oak, till he has seen all that naked eye and lens 

 can see, and so on. Then the anatomical detail of the text- 

 books will become of interest, and therefore of true service ; 

 it helps to clear up how the stem works as well as how it 

 grows ; and thus the simple outline but complex detailed 

 discussion of the " circulation of the sap," of the " thickening 

 of the stem," and the like, becomes gradually familiar and 

 interesting. From simple outlines, like those of Stem and 

 Root in " Chambers," the student may in fact pass direct to 

 Detmer's experimental handbook, and to the convenient 

 survey of the question of sap-circulation in Marshall Ward's 

 Timber and Timber Trees (Nature Series, 1889), and to that 

 of stem-structure in his little book on The Oak (Modern 

 Science Series, 1892) ; thence returning to the larger text- 

 books. 



Flower, Fruit, and Seed. Leaving now the problems of 

 vegetative life for those of reproduction, of self-maintaining 

 for species maintaining, a new field of study, the most 

 fascinating of the science, opens before us. Here again, 

 beginning with the actual floral procession of the year 

 in fields and garden, we gather and inquire ; our books, 

 always kept in subordination, mere accessory helps to the 

 study of the phenomena themselves. If the student be by 



