Part 5

Facts about the life of the plant should be abundantly presented, and the facts as collected and told to-day are well-nigh inexhaustible as well as fascinating. True stories of plant life can be, and should be, as interesting as any other stories. Technical terms should be used at first with great restraint, and, as a rule, only where they are obviously convenient or of such universal application that they are a distinct help in developing a sense of the continuity of living things. Those that are used should be so skilfully introduced, and their meaning so thoroughly digested, that they do not seem like technical terms.

Perhaps an illustration will make this point clearer. A child who loves flowers goes to school; he is given one of his favorites and told to pull it to pieces, look at its different parts, and label them with such words as petals, sepals, pistil, stamens; to these are presently added calyx, corolla, monopetalous, polypetalous, innate, adnate, indehiscent, etc., until the child's mind resembles a lumber room of senseless rubbish, in which the flower is buried and lost. To a sensitive child this process is exceedingly painful. He often feels as though he were murdering some helpless thing he had loved, and conceals his tears and his heartache for fear of being laughed at. Less sensitive children are soon wearied and disgusted, and the love for nature which might have been aroused in them, to the sweetening and steadying of their whole after-life, receives a fatal check.

While the child's love for flowers, and his sentiment concerning them, should not be harmed by his plant work, on the other hand a certain tendency to weak sentimentality wherever encountered should be restrained. He should not be a mere receptacle for dry ashes nor yet a mush of sentimentality. The wise leader will discover the broad middle course where love of the flower shall be deepened, and, as it were, broadened, by knowledge of its wonderful structure and functions. These can be well understood without so much as one technical term, though the skilful introduction of a few helpful words will not detract at all from the pleasure of the study, and will be most convenient.

Even the botanical names of the flowers themselves are of questionable value. The main thing is to recognize the flower as we recognize any other friend, and of course some name is necessary, but that this name be technical is, in most cases, not even desirable. "Wind-flower" is quite as good as "anemone," better, indeed, as it expresses a certain feeling about the flower that "anemone" does not convey. So, too, "mayflower" is more suggestive than "trailing arbutus," and that than Epigæa repens. Thus at first let the children learn only the common names of the flowers, at the same time that they discover all that is interesting about them. Later, when their interest is sure, the pretty name "anemone" will give an added charm. They can be told that it comes from the Greek word anemos, meaning wind, and that anemones grow in Greece, and all that part of the world, and are gathered by the little children there. If the children are of an age to be studying or reading the tales of mythology, or the fascinating beginnings of Greek and Roman history, they will be delighted to think that anemones were no doubt gathered by Ulysses and Hector and the other Trojan heroes when they were children in that far-away land, and that the grandson of Æneas saw them in the Campagna near the Rome he founded, as the Italian children see them to-day. Thus through his botany the child can get a more vivid sense of the life of the past, can have a link forged in that invaluable mental chain which links him, mind, body, and soul, to everything else in the universe, and the consciousness of which is one of our most precious and helpful endowments in this life.

The universality of life and mind and soul, the universality of the methods of their manifestations even, the unity of life,--nothing by itself, everything going out into and permeating everything else,--this great truth, which ought to burst upon the young mind with controlling force at a critical period later, should have its way prepared in childhood.

So far as technical terms are concerned, the child will gladly take them--in small doses--when he understands the things they represent,--that is, when the knowledge comes before the label; and when he recognizes their convenience in grouping the different varieties and species so that their relations to themselves and to other plants can be kept in the mind with a minimum of exertion.

The time comes when the analysis of the flower can be as interesting as any part of the work, if it has been preceded by other information and if it is pursued intelligently and delightfully. To illustrate again. The wild rose looked at simply as a thing of beauty and perfume becomes yet more interesting to the child who watches the bee gather its golden pollen and its luscious nectar. There is a bond of union now between the fragile flower and its winged guest that begets an altruism which later becomes normally the corner-stone of character. When the graceful tribute of the bee to the flower is presently understood, and the child learns that the seeds of the flower have to thank the bee for their life, the mind expands yet more, and glows at the thought of this relationship in which each of these charming creatures practically preserves the life of the other.

Now, too, the thought that the seed, the child of the plant, is at the heart of every flower, that it is for this nascent life, this 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 spite of the old methods will pursue it yet more eagerly under the new. Many who would have turned away from it entirely will continue their study into the technical works, while great numbers who have no leaning toward technical study and would have had nothing to do with botany under the old methods, under the new will assimilate the best truths the study of this subject is able to give, and so far from finding a wild rose less fragrant or less beautiful because of their close scrutiny of it, they will find it infinitely more so,--infinitely more rich in affording poetical thoughts, comparisons, and images.

What is true of plant life is equally true of animal life. The first attention should be directed toward the animal itself, its life and habits, technical information coming afterwards.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SEED

In dealing with the special subject of this book too much stress cannot be laid upon the value of associating the phenomena of the renewal of life with all other vital phenomena, instead of divorcing it from them.

Two reasons why the subject of reproduction has such undue prominence in the minds of many people are, first, the manner in which it has been made conspicuous through concealment; and second, the fact that when spoken of at all, it has been treated as a unique phenomenon unrelated to anything else. These are not the only reasons, but they are strong ones, and their existence is quite unnecessary.

Education, therefore, should remove both of these stumbling-blocks. The first one is easily removed, though the value of its removal depends entirely upon the manner in which that removal is accomplished. The second is also easily removed, the only difficulty being how to do it in the most helpful manner. The problem, then, for the instructor to solve is, how fully to acquaint the child with the phenomena of the reproductive life without making the subject unduly prominent.

This can well be done by interesting him in all the phenomena of living things, and allowing the reproductive function to take its place, not as something alone and different from everything else, but as one in a series of vital phenomena, all equally important and all interesting; not as something peculiar to human life or to the higher animals, but belonging equally to every living thing, whether animal or plant, and manifesting itself in the same way everywhere. Nor is this as difficult as at first glance it may seem. Indeed it is not difficult at all if one can begin with the young child, building little by little the foundation upon which later to erect a noble superstructure.

It is a beautiful fact that the plant world offers illustrations of all the underlying phenomena of the reproductive life, and that through the flowers the little one can get his first introduction to the great subject. Not that he will at first understand the connection between the flower life and the human life, but the facts in the flower having been clearly perceived, there is nothing easier or more beautiful than to expand the idea when the time comes, until it embraces all life.

But what about those children who are no longer in their infancy? How are they to be taught?

In practically the same way, with some modification of method.

Since the aim here is to present the subject from the beginning, the first succeeding chapters will deal with it as applied to the young child. Following this, methods for use with older children will be discussed.

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Objects to be accomplished with the younger children in the study of the plant.

(1) To make them feel that the plants are living things with activities like other living things.

(2) To convey a clear idea of the true relation of seed to plant. This can be amplified later to cover the reproductive phenomena of human life.

(3) To give them a foundation for understanding the relation of father to child, when the time comes to explain that.

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Some children naturally think of the plant as alive; they endow it with thought, feeling, and emotion; talk to it, consult it, caress it. Others do not. In both cases it is of value to the child to know the deeper truths concerning the life of the plant. In the one case it will steady sentimentality and guard against later loss of interest, in the other it will stimulate imagination and foster a high type of sentiment.

An easy and effective way to begin the study of the plant is to watch it as it sprouts from the seed. Since a large seed, easy to see and simple in structure, is best, an ordinary bean answers the purpose admirably, particularly as the bean has the convenient habit of rising up above the ground when it sprouts, the development of the embryo proceeding in full view. Any of the common varieties will answer the purpose, though of course the larger the bean the more easily it can be observed.