174 



Garden and Forest. 



[April 9, 1890. 



bill. This is good counsel, and we trust that every one 

 who reads this paragraph will promptly act upon it. Some 

 of the bills which will come before this sub-committee are 

 framed for the purpose of facilitating the destruction of the 

 national forests, and they will not lack interested advo- 

 cates ; it is the part of public spirit to make use of every 

 legitimate influence to oppose these pernicious measures 

 and to hasten action by Congress for preserving and 

 maintaining the remnants of the forest on the national 

 domain. 



The Parterre, Fontainebleau. 



NO royal residence in France is more famous than Fon- 

 tainebleau, partly because of the palace and the historical 

 associations that cluster round it, and partly because of the 

 beautiful neighboring forest, which, for ages, was the favorite 

 hunting-ground of the court. There is no record of the foun- 

 dation of the palace, but it was already ancient when Saint 

 Louis, in the thirteenth century, added a tower, which was the 

 only portion suffered to remain amid the reconstructions of 

 Francois I. Peculiar interest attaches to these reconstructions, 

 for, in order that they might be fittingly completed, the King 

 summoned a number of celebrated artists from Italy and thus po- 

 tently influenced the development of the art of the Renaissance 

 in France. Henry IV. also added to the palace, and he doubled 

 the size of the grounds, which, in the reign of Louis XIV., were 

 radically remodeled by Le Notre. Between his day and ours 

 there have been many alterations both within and without the 

 palace, but the general aspect of the place still largely repre- 

 sents the ideals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 



The gardens are divided into three portions — the Parterre, 

 or garden proper; the English Garden, laid out in the "natural 

 style" and bordered by a lake; and the private Jardin du Roi or 

 Orangery. Our picture shows the Parterre, which is interest- 

 ing as an example of modern taste in planting applied to an 

 ancient design. Here we have not the so-called "French 

 parterre," which, as recently described in these columns, con- 

 sists of long beds thickly planted with masses of hardy flowers 

 that are arranged with a care for form and color contrasts, but 

 then allowed to grow in natural luxuriance. We have, instead, 

 a succession of formal beds, such as are very familiar in 

 America, but disposed in a more appropriate way than is 

 often the case with us. From the regularity of all the lines of 

 the design these beds do not seem too stiff and mechanical; 

 and in a general view they do not make inharmonious spots, 

 but blend into long strips of color which effectively relieve 

 without disturbing the reposefulness of the wide lawns. In 

 the picture we seem to read traces of the fact that larger beds, 

 now turfed over, formerly occupied the centre of these lawns; 

 and we feel sure it was well to do away with them. 



Of course in our climate such a wide space so simply treated 

 and quite devoid of shade would not be a very agreeable place 

 of promenade in summer, while the grass would often be so 

 burnt as to injure beauty in a distant view. But in the grayer, 

 damper, cooler climate of northern Europe these objections 

 do not hold, and the broad open Parterre is a welcome con- 

 trast to the informal English garden and to the adjacent park, 

 the trees of which show in the background of our illustration. 

 The main point we wish to emphasize is, however, that the 

 formal flower beds which are so hideous and disturbing when 

 introduced into a "natural" arrangement, may be entirely 

 pleasing in a formal one. The fact is as true if, instead of a 

 garden so extensive as this at Fontainebleau, we have one so 

 small that even in our climate its openness would be no fault 

 and its grass could easily be kept well watered. Lovers of 

 such brilliant beds could use them to produce beauty instead 

 of discord if they were willing to exchange the curving paths 

 and carelessly grouped shrubs of their little grounds or front 

 yards for straight paths and symmetrically arranged plantations. 



Methods of Botanical Study. 



T?EW persons will take exception to the argument made in 

 -*■ your columns in advocacy of botany as a study for the 

 young. But there are different methods of study, and since 

 the " laboratory method " has been criticised it may be well to 

 outline the plan adopted by many successful teachers of the 

 science. 



The "laboratory men" place abundant materials within the 

 reach of students, and with a few hints and suitable appa- 

 ratus require them to proceed to make discoveries for them- 

 selves. They first observe, handle, dissect, compare and study 



the specimens, and after this they begin to make some use of 

 books. The "laboratory" method includes the study of gross 

 anatomy of plants with the unaided eye or with a simple 

 microscope, as well as plant physiology, where assistance is 

 received from compound microscopes and other apparatus. 



In the old-fashioned way the student was taught, or learned 

 from books mainly, a large number of facts, names, systems 

 of classification, etc. This plan is still extensively adopted, as 

 we may infer from the following, taken from the opening para- 

 graph of Wood's "Botanist and Florist," recently revised: 

 "The proper season for the commencement of the study of 

 botany in schools is late in winter, at the opening of the first 

 session after New Year's. The class will thus be prepared 

 beforehand, by a degree of acquaintance with first principles, 

 for the analysis of the earliest spring-flowers." The plan 

 above followed is dull work. 



The old method places the pupils in front of a lecturer, who 

 pours information into them, or questions them concerning 

 lessons learned from a book. In the old method the students 

 witness the play; in the new they begin at once to be the actors. 

 To become a good botanist one must depend mainly on his 

 own exertions, and become a self-made man. This depends 

 little on the information imparted by the teacher, but largely 

 on what the teacher induces his pupils to do for themselves. 

 In the old way the pupil gains knowledge mainly; in the new, 

 besides knowledge, he acquires method, confidence, power 

 and enthusiasm. 



The science of botany within thirty years has broadened to 

 an astonishing extent. Now we have all that was ever of 

 value to engage our attention in botany, and five times as 

 much more. We still cling to systematic botany as essential, 

 but cannot get along without the plant structure and physi- 

 ology and the lower forms of plants which the microscope has 

 revealed. This large expansion of the field has led to changes 

 in methods, and we believe to improved methods of study. 



The following, from President Eliot's last annual report to 

 the Board of Overseers of Harvard University, is in point : 



" During recent years every college teacher has been forced 

 to answer anew the personal questions, what can I best teach, 

 and how shall I teach it? Every man has really been obliged 

 to take up new subjects and to treat them in new methods. 

 There is not a single member of the faculty who is to-day 

 teaching what he taught fifteen years ago as he then taught it. 

 . . . Each teacher has had to recast his own work, each de- 

 partment repeatedly to modify and extend its series of courses." 



The laboratory method claims to include a study of plants in 

 the field, forest, prairie and ravine ; their morphology, the 

 great variety of ways in which pollen is carried from anther to 

 stigma, the contrivances for keeping unwelcome guests from 

 flowers, where they can be of no use to the plants, the plans 

 by which some plants entice, entrap and feed on insects, the 

 motions of plants, the climbing of roots, leaves, tendrils, the 

 ways in which nature sows, distributes and plants seeds, and 

 many other things not here mentioned. 



Dr. Goodale, in "Guides to Science Teaching," says : "The 

 pupil must earn his facts ; they are to be placed within his 

 reach, but not in his hands. The technical terms are not 

 thrust upon the student ; they are introduced only as they are 

 needed." 



I cannot refrain from quoting the following from Dr. Far- 

 low. It is found in Popular Science Monthly for March, 1886: 



"The position of the instructor is not an easy one. He is 

 under constant retraint, as he must not tell the student, but 

 must, if possible, make the student tell him, the struc- 

 ture of what lies before him. He is in the position 

 of a boxing master who might easily floor his pupil by 

 a single blow, but who must, by the exertion of great pru- 

 dence and skill, contrive to let the pupil hit him. By a 

 judicious series of questions, suggestions of possibilities or 

 alternatives, the student may be kept in the right track and yet 

 do all the work of advancing toward the truth himself. 



"The most serious obstacle, it seems to me, is not so much 

 that boys are not taught biology at school, as that they are not 

 taught to observe, but are, on the other hand, taught to mem- 

 orize text books, and to regard education as the acquiring of 

 facts in the most rapid and easiest way. 



"Patting one on the back and saying, 'Don't you see this?' 

 and 'Don't you see that?' does not tend to produce a very 

 robust mental development." 



In the new botany, for which we are speaking a good word, 

 we set pupils to studying plants before books. Before the first 

 lesson each pupil is furnished or told where to procure some 

 specimen for study. If it is winter, and flowers or growing 

 plants cannot be had, give each a branch of a tree or shrub, 

 which may be two feet long. The examination of these is 



