t 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 AEneas 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.

[Illustration: WILD ROSE WITH BEES GATHERING HONEY]

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.

[Illustration: THE SEED, THE CHILD OF THE PLANT, IS AT THE HEART OF
EVERY FLOWER]

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, t