32 



INTRODUCTION 



will be interested in what was said by Huxley, one of the 

 greatest of science teachers : — 



In addition [to reading and writing] I should make it absolutely 

 necessary for everybody, for a longer or shorter period, to learn to 

 draw. Now, you may say, there are some people who cannot draw, 

 however much they may be taught. I deny that in toto, because I 

 never yet met with anybody who could not learn to write. Writing 

 is a form of drawing; therefore. if you give the same attention and 

 trouble to drawing as you do to writing, depend upon it, there is 

 nobody who cannot be made to draw, more or less well. Do not mis- 

 apprehend me. I do not say for one moment you would make an 

 artistic draughtsman. Artists are not made ; they grow. You 

 may improve the natural faculty in that direction, but you cannot 

 make it ; but you can teach simple drawing, and you will find it an 

 implement of learning of extreme value. I do not think its value 

 can be exaggerated, because it gives you the means of training the 

 young in attention and accuracy, which are the two things in which 

 all mankind are more deficient than in any other mental quality what- 

 ever. The whole of my life has been spent in trying to give my proper 

 attention to things and to be accurate and I have not succeeded as 

 well as I could wish ; and other people, I am afraid, are not much 

 more fortunate. You cannot begin this habit too early, and I con- 

 sider there is nothing of so great a value as the habit of drawing to 

 secure those two desirable ends. 



Notes, to be of much value to you, must be original with 

 you. They must be the record of your own thoughts and 

 observation, not a record of the thoughts and observations 

 of others. If the notebook is not largely original with 

 you, the time spent upon it is largely wasted. Notes which 

 are not original may be valuable memoranda, and good 

 practice in handwriting, but they are not the kind that 

 rouses the power of your brain. 



The study of plants is in your course and the notebook 

 is a part of that study largely in order to induce you to 



