ns; 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.

[Illustration: THE ANEMONE OR WIND-FLOWER]

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
_Epigaea 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 tha