232 The Museum Gazette 



" Whoever wished to recommend himself to Goethe for ever, needed 

 only to bring him some specimen from his travels. The paw of an 

 arctic bear or of a beaver, the tooth of a lion, the strangely twisted 

 horn of a chamois or a deer, or any other object differing in part or 

 wholly from familiar forms and organisations, sufficed to delight him 

 for days and weeks, and to furnish him with matter for repeated 

 observations." 



Of the methods of education which he saw in vogue he 

 was a severe critic. 



"Young men," he said, "are driven in flocks to lecture-rooms, and 

 are crammed, for want of any real nutriment, with quotations and 

 words. The insight, which is wanting to the teacher, the learner is 

 to get for himself, as he may. No great wisdom or acuteness is 

 necessary to perceive that this is an entirely mistaken path." 



The time of year is again with us which Keats apostrophised 

 as the 



" Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness, 

 Close bosom friend of the maturing sun." 



The appropriate subjects for October observation, in garden 



and field, are the formation of fruits and seeds ; the fall of the 



leaf and the changes in colour which leaves undergo ; the 



preparations for winter and the anticipations of spring. The 



growth of the whole mushroom tribe, although at no time of 



year quite at standstill, is now very abundant. Autumn is 



the summer of the fungologists' year. In the decay of other 



things the stored warmth of the earth and the abundant 



moisture in the air, these rot-loving saprophytes find their 



opportunity. 



We have in our Seasonal Notes (see p. 266) devoted 

 considerable space • to the various topics which we have 

 named above. 



Are any of our readers liable to Autumn melancholy ? Let 

 them watch the operations of the farmer. How promptly the 

 plough is at work where the corn has been cut ! The object 

 in view is not to bury out of sight that most depressing of all 

 objects, the stubble, but to prepare for seeding and next 

 summer's growth of green. Or let him pull down a hazel- 

 bough and observe that not only are the leaf-buds forming in 

 all the axils, but that actual flower-buds are already there. 



