NEW LIFE IN OLD SUBJECTS 1 73 
But even suppose for a moment that nature were less 
lavish, is it, then, the amount of material that determines 
the effectiveness of study ? On the contrary, have not the 
great teachers of biolog}^ always laid stress upon the ideas of 
science and the methods of science? And have they not, on 
the whole, opposed as a mischievous and unscientific practice 
the accumulation of myriads of facts, which, in their confu- 
sion, not only fail to reveal, but which cloud the truth ? As 
a rule these miasters of science, resolutely eliminating side 
issues, put before their students a few carefully selected car- 
dinal type forms. They trusted in the principle that through 
patient, hard-won intimacy with the mechanism of some type 
organism, — an earthworm, it might be, a fern, or a fish, 
— a student’s scientific power would reveal itself ; and so 
indeed it proved. 
To further answer those who worry lest boys and girls 
may confine their attention to mere marigolds and beans, it 
may be that they have not found out by experience that when 
children start on a seemingly easy quest they become, before 
they know it, lost in a maze of side issues. One step leads 
to another, much like the chronicle of "The House that Jack 
built." To illustrate : The gyrations of a cabbage caterpillar 
once led a class to a dispute in regard to caterpillars and 
their uses; then to the value of the silkworm; then to the 
silk industry and its history, including the display of raw 
materials ; then to an ingenious demonstration of methods of 
manufacture, which involved investigation by reading and 
correspondence ; then to the further study of the habits and 
customs of the silk caterpillar ; then, on the part of one of 
the company, to a day’s journey to the city of Hartford, Con- 
necticut, where, at that time, in the School of Horticulture, 
these caterpillars were flourishing on the mulberry trees 
planted for them. Next followed a scheme for raising a 
