A Word for Books 
simpler just to call the pretty things bluets! The 
truth is, my dears, that the Latin names make a 
herbarium look very learned ; and when you col- 
lect one I hope you will take great pains to have the 
plants properly labelled. But what would your poets 
do with Houstonia ccerulea in their verses ? I do 
not think such terms are suitable for the finer uses 
of life and literature ; so I hope you children all 
will take pains to learn the common names of the 
flowers. I only wish you could tell me every one ; 
but perhaps someone will yet make a dictionary of 
them. 
I do not think that more misleading coun- 
sels can ever have been conveyed in a par- 
agraph as short as this. 
In the first place, it implies that, as a 
class, the scientific names of plants are less 
agreeable to the ear than the vernacular 
names. But is milkwort prettier than poly- 
gala, or woad-waxen than genista, or tick- 
trefoil than desmodium, or false-indigo than 
baptisia, or false-mitrewort than tiarella ? 
Which would a poet prefer to say — sweet- 
gum or liquidambar, pepperidge or nyssa, 
fetid-marigold or dysodia, sneeze-weed or 
helenium, shin-leaf or pyrola ? And would 
he really object very much even to claytonia 
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