4 
PREFACE. 
But the present book has a still stronger claim to 
attention; it develops a new method of study which 
is designed to correct that which is confessedly the 
deepest defect of our current education. This defect 
is the almost total lack of any systematic cultivation 
of the observing powers. Although all real knowl¬ 
edge begins in attention to things , and consists in the 
discrimination and comparison of the likenesses and 
differences among objects; yet, strange to say, in our 
vaunted system of instruction there is no provision 
for the regular training of the perceptive faculties. 
That which should be first and fundamental is hardly 
attended to at all. We train in mathematics, and 
cram the contents of books, but do little to exercise 
the mind upon the realities of Nature, or to make it 
alert, sensitive, and intelligent, in respect to the order 
of the surrounding world. 
Something, indeed, has been done in the way of 
object-teaching, although but little that is satisfactory. 
These exercises are notoriously loose, desultory, inco¬ 
herent, and superficial, and hardly deserve the name 
of mental training. What is wanted is, that object- 
studies shall become more close and methodic, and 
that the observations shall be wrought into connected 
and organized knowledge. It is the merit of Botany 
that, beyond all other studies, it is suited to the at¬ 
tainment of this end. Plants furnish abundant and 
ever-varying materials for observation. The element- 
