Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/187

Rh of you will take, say, a second class through the first twenty exercises in Miss Youmans's little book, working them out conscientiously and thoroughly, I do not hesitate to predict that that class will by this means acquire more real knowledge and more intellectual power than it would acquire from all the reading, writing, and ciphering done in the first four classes, if done without such a course. Furthermore, the power gained and the habits acquired in the study of plants, or even in the examination of leaves, will not be confined solely to these, but will be directed to and exercised upon all other objects coming within the range of the children's observation; thus their general knowledge will be extended, and, as a result, your pupils will read with more intelligence and with fuller comprehension of what they are reading about. As for arithmetic—and here I can speak with some authority—you will find that you have somehow bridged over the to many seemingly impassable gulf between the mere art of ciphering and the application of that art to the resolution of numerical problems. Words will no longer be mere vacant forms or empty sounds, their content will be restored to them, the data of the problem will be mentally realized, and their interrelations discovered and comprehended. In nine cases out of ten, it is the inability to realize the data, to project before the mind's eye a picture of the reality, that is the actual stumbling-block in the way of children who fail in the solution of arithmetical problems.

But the work had better not be done at all if it be not done thoroughly and conscientiously. All that can be done in a text-book is merely to set up numerous finger-posts to guide the student or the teacher; the scenery on the route can not be presented in all its fullness of detail, with all its play of light and shade; to behold it one must actually travel the road. In the course of teaching these twenty exercises, thousands of questions will arise of whys and wherefores, some of which you will have to put aside for the time being at least; but to others you must lead your children to find the answers for themselves. All these questions can not possibly be anticipated in any book; and it is well they can not be so, for, ever new, ever changing, they afford mental exercise to the teacher as well as to the pupils, and thus prevent any danger of stagnation on either side. Let me take in illustration a very simple question; one interesting to myself personally, because it was the first botanical problem I ever solved, but which, if the solution be properly generalized, is interesting in itself as giving the key to many peculiarities in the forms and markings of leaves.

When I was but a lad at school, a fellow-pupil, the son of a farmer, told me that on the back of every green blade of oats there was legibly stamped a capital B. I laughed at him for his simplicity in thinking he could make me believe such an "old wife's fable"; but he indignantly replied that not only had his father told him of