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The child who can close his eyes, and describe accurately and 
vividly a plant and its surroundings, is started in the right direc 
tion, Last May, the children of the first primary grade of a 
school in Chicago were taken thirty miles to see the flowers on 
the flood-plain of the Des Plaines River. They had ina measure 
been prepared for this during the winter. It had been a favorite 
exercise for their nature-teacher to say, ‘Now we will all close 
our eyes. I see an elm leaf; can you see it?” 
For a moment there would be silence, then a chorus of “I can 
see it!’ “I can see it!’ ‘Mine’s notched,” “ Mine’s notched 
twice,” ‘“‘Mine’s one-sided,” “ Mine is, too”; then over in the 
corner a little wail — ‘‘ Where is it? I can’t see it anywhere.” 
“She wasn’t here that day we had the elm leaves.” 
“TI can make her one on the blackboard, may 1?”’ 
“T’ll make a ripe one all dry and brown.” 
“Td rather make a nice green, live one.” 
And it would end in each drawing the thing as he saw it, a 
present consummation of Kipling’s view of a happy future. 
There was quite a stock of leaves of various kinds, and even 
whole trees that could be seen with the eyes closed, but only 
teacher could see hepaticas and spring-beauties and blood- 
ee 
was a great and momentous day when we set out for 
River pie All had agreed to gather no flowers where it 
would spoil a picture, and because the teacher knew where the 
most beautiful pictures were, all were to keep close to her. The 
first picture was a colony of several families of hepaticas on the 
side of the terrace leading down into the basin. We noted the 
open blossoms, the nodding buds, the soft furry covering of the 
buds and young leaves, and the rich red-purple tones of the old 
ones. We looked and looked and closed our eyes and looked 
again. Then we went on to the great host of spring-beauties 
camping on the plain. Later, we tarried by a mass of purple 
phlox at the foot of a linden tree. The morning’s work con- 
sisted in fixing these three pictures and a fourth which was the 
landscape, the general setting for them all, the old flood-plain 
with its magnificent elms and white maples then in blossom, the 
