The Press., 1888-06-14

dew, or rather wet with the cold drizZle of May. With a very knowing air the pink aproned little miss drew forth couple of trembling flowers, animatedly saying these are not d-nemones, but Un-nemones, and these leaves are arrow-shaped; this one is heart shaped and saw-edged; this plant is biennial-it dies at the end of two years, and just see the veins and vein lets in this delicate leaf. Happy result of brief oral aesthetic training, this term at the South-st. school.
 Sister chums of the dilapidated recitation bench, how delightfully."- interesting to have had bits of this pretty science sandwiched in between the rounds of scalene triangles and very complex sentences the end of each term would find us foundering thro'. Though, if a little learning ever proved a dangerous thing 10 any of us, 1t is some- what to be feared some of the rising gen. eration may suffer in like manner, for this very same girl, who had attended school at all institution where fashionable sys- tems were in full bloom, was asked the name of the longest river in the U S., and, after flushing and pulling disastrously at her apron belt, reminded her questIoner that "she aUGsnt her teacher r But this was during long vacation, when children do more forgetting than remembering like the toad on his journey out of the well-in the winter he jumps up three feet, and in the summer falls back two. Very slow getting out of the well.
 Now certain supervisor of city schools writes substantially that if child of ten years can write down a column of figures and add them quickly and accurately, a great thing has been accomplished. No doubt he has seen many enthusias tic teachers absorbed in their work of aesthetic culture to the deplorable neglect of the points really essential to a practical educa- tion, and, as the old planet still rolls, it is even so-that "wits will win." And the love of a knowledge that will help the youth to support himself, and deposit Q snug little sum annually, and the love of the beautiful, though they may bear a
 'striking kinship," are not the same.
 Il However, the idea is not that the pupil at school or at home should love his arith- metic and geography less, but that the love of trees, flowers and shrubs should be cultivated more and plant analysis bet ter understood, and also that something more should be done for the little girl She may have to gain her own living some adverse day, and the ability to do so may as well be an outgrowth of the study of !, flower structure as anything else-it need not be dry and technical, either. See the smiling dwellers of the meadow, garden and laue. She shall remember where the : sweetest wild flowers grew last summer. You will be glad to discover iu her nature that she permits no 'tcaste" among Flora z emblems. The water-lily, so prettily called by ancient flower writers the ''swan o the waters, and the "rose of the Tivulet, shall be to her not more beautiful than the star grass at her feet. She will like tho recreation of having -her childish fingers set early to fashioning red lily or chrys anthemum from bits of paper, wax, muslin , or feathers, and as the corolla-calyx ant pericarp grow beneath her touch, tho names which she may have learned incl dentally will fall from her lips as readily as Volapuk dropsi from the lips of tn, Parisian professor. Also let her direc persistent effort to the brush and pencil and from these small attempts the wall of your possibly hot, murky dwelling ma. , one day become bright and cheery. Why reader, if you have suffered the absence O bright colors in an every, day living room some three or four years, you can address an audience on the "philosophy of color this very hour. May the bi-weekly les sons in botany continue.
 A small book of "How Plants Grow, O
 "Youman's Second Book, is what ever, year-old child needs Your labor unt pans will be well paid in seeing the chil dren understand lhe diversity, form, hab
 it, language, cultivation, etc, of each herl and blossom, as also in noticing your fl w CTS arranged with an eye to effect, and
 delicate tracery drawn between the sum
 lner harebell and the "plumes of the gold en-rod" as innocent of any beginnings
 the roseate light that touches soft whit, sunset cloud. NJ.