Study of Plants. 139 



panels easily, as does its physical home when given opportunity 

 to do so naturally. To learn to see, the child must make pur- 

 posive efforts in looking. He must be made to look for the 

 purpose of discovering characteristics. Characteristics are not 

 impressed easily. The young mind does not learn to see until 

 it has looked many times and looked discriminatingly. 



Phenomena well adapted to the beginning of this kind of 

 training are found in plants and animals. Fortunately these are 

 geographic phenomena, a knowledge of which will be valuable 

 in the future prosecution of geographic knowledge. A study of 

 the forms of leaves, the colors of leaves, the parts of' leaves, 

 the growth of leaves, involving comparisons and leading to con- 

 clusions, will strengthen the mind systematically and develop 

 its power to see. A study of buds, their forms, their positions 

 and their development, will train the mind systematically, but 

 on a slightly different line from that resulting from the study 

 of leaves. There is in the study of buds a beginning of the 

 study of cause and effect, but so simple, so easily understood, 

 that the most childlike mind, if properly directed, can master it. 

 Correspondingly it may be said of other parts of the study of 

 plants ; then may it be said of plants in their entirety. By simple 

 steps, each of which is taken many times, the child advances to 

 the knowledge of the forms of plant life and many of the sequen- 

 tial changes of the same. The child's mind during this study 

 is strengthened, his breadth of seeing and thinking is enlarged, 

 for it has involved his knowledge of the phenomena of cold and 

 warm weather, of wet and dry weather, of sunshine and cloud, 

 of springtime and summer, of fall and winter ; and his experi- 

 ences, because of other relations of life than those of his school, 

 have been made to form a part of his knoAvledge as one compact 

 interrelated entirety, and to do office in that training which gives 

 him power to see and strength to discover cause and effect. 

 The work here indicated is possible in the school-room ; fortu- 

 nately also it is the most profitable work that can be done for 

 the accomplishment of those mechanical results which the school 

 is expected to secure. In a corresponding way the study of ani- 

 mals is equally profitable. It is a little more difficult because 

 the phenomena are not so easily secured for study, a little more 

 difficult again because the phenomena are not so easily under- 

 stood as those of plants. The child has been prepared for this 

 more difficult work, however, by his study of plants. 



