FRIENDLY CRITICISM 393 
indispensable tools for scientific teaching, and for accuracy 
in the use of them, and — striking personal note — the happy 
freedom with which two friends could speak their minds to 
each other. 
Many thanks for the perusal of the enclosed, which 1 
Hke very much indeed — I have made a few pencil suggestions. 
The term systematic Botany is a bad one, but there is 
no better in ordinary use ; it hence wants a httle amphfying 
upon to show that that branch is more than classification. 
Morphological is the right, in contradistinction to Physio- 
logical, but not adapted to your purpose. Few people 
appreciate the fact that Syst. Bot. is the exposition of the 
laws upon which plants are formed as well as classified 
naturally — somehow they do not. 
Have you read Huxley on Methods in Nat. Hist. ? ^ 
How do you hke it ? I very much. 
My pencil remarks on your sheets are only suggestions. 
I hke the whole thing very much. 
December 12, 1854. 
My dear Henslow, — The enclosed seems very expHcit 
and clear ; I have no suggestions to offer but a very few verbal 
ones. Would it not be as well to put all the technical 
terms in italics, it seems to give them weight ? Under 
Flowers, I have put a pencil through * through arrest of 
development ' — as I think it is rather questionable and at 
any rate will be canvassed. Can we say that the Papa- 
veraceae, having 4 petals and only 2 sepals, is through an 
arrest ? this order being formed on a binary plan quite 
as normally as other Dicots are on a quinary. If we hold 
this to be an arrest of development, we must also consider 
the Monocots to be ternary through arrest — or reason in 
a circle. The fact is we call 5 the normal number, simply 
because it is prevalent : and by the same token 5 being 
prevalent in phaenogams as a whole, the Monocots which 
are in the minority are as much entitled to be considered 
arrests, as are Papaveraceae. 
Under Gymnosperms, — ' an unfolded scale ' is very am- 
biguous, the said scale never was folded ; but if you say 
^ On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences. An address 
delivered on July 12, 1854. 
