PREFACE. 



Having been for several years a Teacher of Botany, I have had considerable opportunity of experi- 

 menting on the happiest means of imparting this delightful science. The importance of Pictorial 

 Illustrations, systematically combined for regular exercises, early suggested itself. A new system of 

 teaching was thence wrought out, consisting of a set of Diagrams made to Illustrate Oral Lessons ; and 

 the plan was eminently successful. Those Lessons and Diagrams are reproduced in the present work, 

 with such extension and improvements as the written form, and the superior light and progress of 

 the times, admit and demand. The Illustrations are presented to the eye in large groups, and are 

 either immediately, or very nearly, associated with the corresponding portions of the Text. They 

 are designed to be used as regular exercises for study and recitation, the same as maps in Geogra- 

 phy. They are, in fact, but a recapitulation of the text in another form ; and thus, while they re- 

 peat the idea, they also give a pleasing variety to the lessons ; and appealing from the eye to the 

 mind, and the reverse, they awaken the most lively associations, tending to fix the impressions not 

 only in the memory, but also in the heart. 



It is a remarkable fact, that with all the beauty of flowers, and the universal love of them which 

 prevails in the world, the Science of Flowers is one of the most unpopular — the dryest and the 

 dullest — ^in the common estimation — to which the attention of the student is ever called. But there 

 can be no intrinsic necessity of this. Objects which are externally so beautiful, and which address 

 themselves to the finest affections of the soul, must, in their internal structure, their habits, and aU 

 the relations of their beautiful life, present corresponding associations of beauty and love, whenever 

 true and familiar views can be obtained. An attempt is made in the present series to disarm the 

 science of at least a portion of those terrors with which it has been long invested, and to make it in- 

 teresting and attractive to the common mind. As the love and observation of flowers are among the 

 earliest phenomena of the mental Hfe, so should some correct knowledge of them be among the ear- 

 liest teachings. The work, then, should begin at home. But there should be also good Common- 

 School Books, which are at once so cheap and so pleasing, that they may, and will, be bought and 

 used. 



