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THE GARDENERS’ 
CHRONICLE. 
[Apri 6, 1895, 
EDITORIAL NOTICES. 
Advertisements should be sent to the PUBLISHER. 
Newspapers.—Correspondents sending newspapers should be 
careful to mark the paragraphs they wish the Editor to see. 
tions. The Editor will thankfully receive and select 
photographs or drawings, suitable for reproduction in these 
pages, of gardens, or of remarkable plants, flowers, trees, 
injury. 
&c.; but he cannot be responsible for loss or injw 
on. 
should be N ON ONE SIDE ONLY OF R, 
sent as early in the wee ble, and duly signe by 
ter. If red, the signature will not be printed, but 
kept as a guarantee of good faith The Editor does not under- 
take to pay contributions, or to ret d 
muni unless by special arrangement 
APPOINTMENTS FOR THE MONTH, 
MEETINGS. 
Royal Horticultural Society’s Com- 
TUESDAY, APRIL 9 mittees, at Drill Hall, James 
Str estminster, 
THURSDAY, APRIL 18—Linnean Society. 
TUESDAY, APRIL 23 f 3 Society’s Com- 
SATURDAY, APR L 27 Royal Botanic Society. 
Norfolk and Norwich Horticultural 
THURSDAY, APRIL 18 Society’s Show at Norwich. 
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24 
$ Newcastle Botanical 
and Horti Society’sSpriog 
Show (2 days); Eastbourne Battle 
cf Flowers, 
samba, arn Parir 
SALES FOR THE ENSUING WEEK. 
Roses, Lilies, Gladioli, &c., at 
MONDAY, APBIL 84 Protherce & Morris’ Rooms. 
TUESDAY, Arai 9 1 at Protheroe & Morris’ 
Lilies, Tuberoses, Roses, Ferns, 
WEDNESDAY, APRIL wo} Palm Seeds, &c., at Protheroe & 
Morris’ Rooms, 
CORRECTED AVERAGE TEMPERATU RE FOR THE ENSU- 
, DEDUCED FROM THE OBSERVATIONS 
OF FORTY-THREE YEARS, AT CHISWICK.—47’.3. 
in board-schools is now recog- 
nised, and in many cases adopted. 
least, a step in the right direction, but if we 
enquire more closely into the met we shall 
probably find that there is not so much ground 
kor satisfaction. It is not certain that all who 
believe in the teaching of science to children, 
awe is i 
which it should not be taught, That it sho 
not follow on the lines of the multiplicati 
table, and be confined to a definite number of 
technicalities learnt by rote from a book, is an 
opinion in which we entirely concur, and yet we 
find upon enquiry that this is the way in which 
this subject is being taught in some metropolitan 
board-schools, As a natural consequence, the 
children are disgusted with it, so that more harm 
than good is accomplished by the experiment. 
Being interested in the teaching of botany to 
children, we have sought to discover what 
method is adopted in one or two of the largest 
and best-conducted schoo's, with very unsatis- 
factory results, In the first place, we found that 
although the text-book is in itself a very good 
one for adults, it is quite unfitted for the purpose 
to which it is applied. No teacher of botany to 
the children of a rural population was ever more 
successful than the late Prof. HENSLOW, but he 
did not employ such an uninteresting and crude 
system as that now in vogue. If we are not 
mistaken, one of the cardinal virtues of his 
without any knowledge of the things themselves, 
of which they would remain as much in igno- 
rance as if they had never attempted the study 
at all. We would ask how it is possible for 
children to acquire any intelligent ideas of the 
form of flowers, and of the relations of their 
organs, except by dissecting the flowers for 
themselves ? Incities and large towns this is even 
of more importance than in the country, where 
wild flowers are common objects of the way-side. 
To cram children with a vocabulary of mere 
words which to them have no meaning, is not to 
advance a single step in the knowledge of plants. 
They might learn to prattle these words like 
parrots, and yet be wholly ignorant of the things 
they represent. What it is requisite for them 
to know is the things themselves, and the names 
by which they are known may follow, but should 
not precede. An intelligent teacher might 
impart a vast fund 
about the morphology and physiology of plants, 
without an undue display of technical knowledge. 
They might interest their young pupils with the 
marvels of vegetable life, instead of disgusting 
them by the discharge of volleys of hard words, 
which for the time being are meaningless; and 
not being ambitious of teaching too much, they 
would really teach a great deal, and teach it 
well, without so much wordy encumbrance. 
Let us take an example from a lesson on dehis- 
cent fruits: A legume, or pod, is a unilocular 
monocarpellary capsule, dehiscing by both dorsal 
and ventral sutures, A siliqua is a syncarpous 
bicarpellary capsule, one-celled, with a false 
division, or replum, running up the centre.” 
What sort of idea would a child ten or twelve 
years of age construct from the above lucid 
description ? Whatever the result might be, 
how much more effective would the teaching be 
if a Pea-pod, and the capsule of a | Wallflower, 
were placed before the child, with the simple 
iculars the one differed 
wherein they would agree, 
Two preliminary questions seem to remain 
unanswered - How fea “ Howr” 
That is to say—how much of the 200 pages of 
Epmonn’s Elementary Botany, bristling with 
technicalities, should be taught? because it 
appears to be taken for granted by the teachers 
that the whole of it must be crammed into the 
ten. year old pates some way or other, whether it 
is ever to be got out again or not. To this we 
object that it is impossible to pack the contents 
of a hogshead within the capacity of a quart-pot, 
and that it is quite unnecessary to do so if it 
possible. We would suggest that so much 
should be taught as can communicated to 
children in language which they oan compre- 
from the other, and 
information to children 
— e 
hend, and that what they do not erstand 
they cannot be expected w learn, As WUR 
“How?” it has already been suggested that 
preaching is not teaching, and, in this 
teaching implies the practical dissection of 
veritable flowers, and the comparison 
not be expected to make shift with one compiled 
for the use of adults; and further, their lessons, 
if they would be effective, must be given, as much 
as possible, with the aid of living examples, 
There is ons other suggestion which may be 
made. Recently the teacher in a board-school 
gave out the following question, to which 
answers were to be supplied in writing“ Some 
English plants have one, others have two, and 
even three kinds of flowers. Explain how this 
the flowers were all of one kind, in others, as in 
the Primrose, there were two kinds of flowers, 
the long-styled and the short-styled; whilst in 
the Purple Loosestrife there were three kinds of 
was intimate that some plants had male 
flowers, others female flowers, and others her- 
maphrodite, or neutral, and that they might be 
combined on the same plant. The girl was 
therefore wrong, and lost her marks, Certainly 
the one answer which failed was as accurate a 
those which succeeded. In such a oase 
fore, the question was either not a judicious ons, 
or not judicially expressed, 
have called attention to this subject 
ROYAL HORTICULTURAL Sociery.—The nex 
meeting of the Koyal Horticultural Society will 
Street, Victoria Street, Westminster. 3 och e 
a paper on Campanulas, by Mr. J. Woop, of Kir 
stall, will be read. 
RovaL HorticuturaL Society OF Ife 
LAND.—The spring show will be held on 2 
April 18, in the Royal University Buildings, Lr 
fort Terrace, Dublin. 
LINNEAN SOCIETY.—Oa the occasion of the 
meeting on Thursday, March 21, Mr. C. 5 W. H. 
President, in the chair, Messrs, R. BEER 2 
rncorn were elected Fellows. A paper in the 
by the President, Oa the Terminal Flower © 
yperaceæ.” After 
Cyperacex had been newly — 
Enater’s Jahrbuch (1886), and in ; 
Phlanzenfamilien, A character taken for a 
division of the order being the inden ne . 
pointed out that in the first sub- order, Scirpas 
with an axillary flower were p aced 
remarking that the 
Paaxrrs 
1 ae A 
„ 
Psilocarya, Dichromena, and Hypo een gone : 
second sub-order Caricoidex, with a berg. 
e. 
— 
from ji a 
value, or 
grievously erred in his ascertainment 
whether in such genus the flower is ter of the 
Mr. CranxR exhibited his own analyses 
