his new
venture into the great world, that the blossom unfolds in beauty and
sheds its perfume on the summer air, yet more expands the joyous
interest taken in the blossom. The mind, through a knowledge of these
facts, can leap out into wider spaces of feeling and imagination. Thus
every truth the child learns about the rose in those first tender years
ought to add to his poetic conception of it. Thus he should learn his
rose until the time comes when its relation to certain other plants will
be full of meaning and full of interest. Perhaps the child has studied
the apple blossom, the strawberry flower, the peach blossom in this same
delightful way. With a very little help he will recognize the similarity
of all three to the rose. He will be delighted to know that these are as
truly related as they seem to be, that they are indeed cousins in one
charming family. How they came to be so different will be a natural
question, the answer to which will involve the latest and most valuable
scientific discoveries. Indeed, in studying nature we should begin with
the latest discoveries of science, which are biological and vital, and
end with man's earlier efforts toward knowledge,--that is, with
classification and nomenclature. When the child knows his plants he may
be interested in their relationships and willing to do the necessary
drudgery toward establishing them. If not, it doesn't matter, he has the
really vital part of the subject, the part that will best help him
toward understanding all life, his own included.

It is to foster a high sentiment toward the life of the plant that the
numerous so-called unscientific botanies which crowd the book-stores
to-day are so valuable, and the numbers that are sold testify to the
interest this side of the subject awakens. What technical botany has
anything like the sale of these less technical books? So far as the real
development of the world at large is concerned they are of inestimably
more use than the technical works, though of course those were the stern
Puritan parents who have given rise to this flock of lovely
non-puritanical children, and without which they of course could not
have existed.

The technical botanies indeed have their use to-day, and it can be
confidently expected that they will be more used than ever before,
because of the large numbers who have had their interest quickened and a
desire to know more awakened. Those who would have found botany
interesting in