Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/392

384 which it is introduced, our elementary books have usually sinned in one or both these points. They are either dry and repulsive, or else vague and incorrect;—frequently have both faults. But the child is here told "how plants grow" in a very pleasant manner, with neat and pretty pictures to illustrate the words, by one whose thorough knowledge and perspicuity of style prevent him from ever giving a wrong impression. The "Popular Flora" which is appended, contains a description of about one hundred families of the most common cultivated and wild plants, and of the most familiar genera and species in each family. The English names are in all cases put in the foreground in bold type,—while the Latin names stand modestly back, half hidden in parentheses and Italics; andthese English names are in general very well selected,—although we think that when two or three English names are given to one plant, or one name to several plants, Dr. Gray ought to indicate which name he prefers. He allows "Dogwood" to stand without rebuke for the poison sumac, as well as for the flowering cornel; and gives "Winterberry" and "Black Alder" without comment to Prinos verticellata. A word of preference on his part might do something towards reforming and simplifying the popular nomenclature, and this child's manual is the place to utter that word. We think also that in a second edition of this Popular Flora it would be well to give a popular description of a few of the most beautiful flowers belonging to those families which are too difficult for the child properly to analyze. Thus, Arethusa, Cypripedium, Pogonia, Calopogon, Spiranthes, Festuca, Osmunda, Onoclea, Lycopodium, Polytrichum, Bryum, Marchantia, Usnea, Parmelia, Cladonia, Agaricus, Chondrus, and perhaps a few other genera, furnish plants so familiar and so striking that a child will be sure to inquire concerning them, and a general description could easily be framed in a few words which could not mislead him concerning them.

In writing for children, Dr. Gray seems to have put on a new nature, in which we have a much fuller sympathy with him than we have ever had in reading his larger books. We do not like that cold English common sense which seems reluctant to admit any truth in the higher regions of thought; and we confess, that, until we had read this little child's book, "How Plants Grow," we had always suspected Dr. Gray of leaning towards that old error, so finely exposed by Agassiz in zoölogy, of considering genera, families, etc., as divisions made by human skill, for human convenience,—instead of as divisions belonging to the Creator's plan, as yet but partially understood by human students.

We hope that the appearance of this masterly little book, so finely adapted to the child's understanding, may have the effect of introducing botany into the common schools. The natural taste of children for flowers indicates clearly the propriety and utility of giving them lessons upon botany in their earliest years. Go into any of our New England country-schools at this season of the year, and you will find a bouquet of wild flowers on the teacher's desk. Take it up and separate it,—show each flower to the school, tell its name, and its relationship to other and more familiar cultivated flowers, the characteristic sensible properties of its family, etc.,—and you will find the younger scholars your most attentive listeners. And if any practical man ask, What is the use of the younger scholars learning anything about wild flowers, which the cultivation of the country may soon render extinct, and which are but weeds at best?—there are two sufficient answers ready: first, that all truth is divine, and that the workmanship of infinite skill is beautiful and worthy of the eyes which may behold it; secondly, that no mental discipline is better adapted for the young mind than this learning how to distinguish plants. No more striking deficiency is observable, in most men, than the lack of a power to observe closely and with accuracy. The general inaccuracy of testimony, usually ascribed to inaccuracy of memory, is in fact to be attributed to inaccuracy of observation. In like manner, a large proportion of popular errors of judgment spring from an imperfect perception of the data on which the true conclusions should be founded. The best remedy for this lack of clear perceptions would evidently be the cultivation of those habits of close observation and nice discrimination necessary in a successful naturalist.