28 
THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
autumn specially with the hope of be- 
ing present at this function. 
These are the four cardinal flowers of 
the country, but much is also made of 
the azaleas, the magnificent giant peony, 
the yard long wisteria and the iris. 
Gardens devoted to these flowers are 
favorite resorts in the springtime. For 
those who can get away from town in 
May, certain mountain slopes are flow- 
ered with the lily of the valley which 
grows wild and in great profusion. In 
speaking of flowers we must not forget 
the remarkable blossom of the monkey 
slipper. This tree, with its gnarled and 
contorted trunk apparently devoid of 
bark and so smooth that even the mon- 
key slips when he tries to climb it. puts 
out bunches of deep pink flowers which 
last from late July even to October, 
giving the tree its second name of hun- 
dred day flower. 
To me, as I think I said to you some 
years ago, it is a most interesting fact 
that the mountains of Japan produce a 
flora that has many points of contact 
with that of New England. It is strange 
that this resemblance, as it were, should 
thus skip America’s Pacific slope and 
touch earth again on the corresponding 
eastern coast of the American conti- 
nent. Tokyo and other places on the 
sea level have almost entirely an ever- 
green foliage. Pines and live oak of 
various kinds with the cryptomeria 
make up the greater part of the trees. 
Two thousand feet up on the mountains 
one gets the white and black birch, the 
beech, chestnut, hazelnut, oak and the 
home flowers. You know I found the 
trailing arbutus some twenty years ago 
when climbing the volcano, Yake-dake, 
in the Japanese Alps. 
Two or three hundred miles south 
from there, one spring, Mrs. Swift and 
I were following the mountain path 
when we saw something which struck 
both of us as so funny that we broke 
into a laugh. Many mountains are re- 
forested with cryptomeria trees whose 
deep brown trunks give a peculiar 
warm and artificial appearance to the 
mountain side. Our little footpath led 
amongst these to the edge of the forest 
through which the sunlight broke as 
through the great windows of some old 
cathedral and right ahead of us on 
either side of the path, looking east, 
were a lot of ladv’s-slippers, while 
plum in the middle of the path facing 
them rose a sturdy jack-in-the-pulpit. 
I often think of that sylvan congre- 
gation. 
In Japan the common variety of the 
jack-in-the-pulpit is called the “snake’s 
looking-glass,” because the spadix is 
prolonged several inches outside the 
spathe, sometimes even down to the 
ground, and looks not unlike a young 
snake that has stuck its head into the 
flower to admire itself. 
“Divorce Between Matter and Form.” 
English has in recent years devel- 
oped into a department by itself and 
as a consequence the other departments 
are left without any English. One 
wing of the faculty devotes itself to 
form, the other wing to matter. The 
student who divides his time between 
them rarely gets the two things to- 
gether, rarely realizes that they belong 
together. This is no wonder, for his 
instructors sometimes do not believe 
that the two things belong together. 
The litterateur sneers at the scientist 
and the scientist returns the compli- 
ment with interest. 
The more the student concentrates 
his work the worse he comes out. If 
he specializes in language he acquires 
an elegant style but has nothing much 
to say with it. If he specializes in 
science he will know a great deal but 
he will have no style about him. The 
result is that the graduating class of a 
college has come to resemble in mental 
equipment the natives of the South Sea 
Islands where, the supply of clothing 
being short, they divided it up and ap- 
peared at church half of them wearing 
coats and the other half trousers. This 
divorce between matter and form, be- 
tween the idea and its expression, is a 
serious defect of our educational sys- 
tem. — By Edwin E. Slosson in “A Plea 
for Popular Science.” 
Mere size does not count for much 
with Nature; she is all there, in the 
least as in the greatest. 
But the big-lettered and startling 
headlines in Nature’s book occupy the 
real nature-lover less than does the 
smaller print. The big and exceptional 
things all can see, but only the loving 
observers take note of the minor facts 
and incidents. — John Burroughs in 
“Field and Study.” 
