and speak of the Rosaceae, the family to which belong the thorns, apples, raspberries, choke cherries, wild roses, shadblows and meadow sweets, whose masses of blossoms and bright colored fruits add so much to our highways and byways; or we might speak of the Umbelliferae with their flower clusters spoked like little umbrellas, some species of which is to be found along field and roadside at almost every season, whether it be the wild carrot, called Queen Anne's lace because of its delicacy, or the giant cowparsnip and archangelica with their large stalks, big clusters and coarse appearance. We should not omit the Compositae, that almost innumerable family among whose ranks are some of our most troublesome though picturesque weeds, called composite because each flower-head is really composed of many individual flowers forming a club or co-operative society; here belong the long list of goldenrods, daisies, sunflowers, asters, etc.

But Botany is not primarily an encyclopedia of names; names are only matters of convenience which furnish us with the means of becoming better acquainted with the haunts and habits, the individual characteristics of each species. Our acquaintance with people is usually only just begun when we are introduced to them; the case is the same with flowers.

So there are other classifications of plants more popular than those by their long Latin names. Mrs. Dana in "How to know the Wild Flowers" classes them according to color, all the white flowers. together, all the yellow, and so on. Higginson, in his "Procession of the Wild Flowers" has taken them according to season. We might follow them in this way, beginning when in spring our roadsides and hillsides are white with dogwood, wild thorn and cherries; when the picturesque clusters of the hobble-bush and the white feathery masses of the shadblow stand out against the pale green of bursting leaf buds. With the advancing season, the pink flush in the white flowers deepens, and after the crab-apples come the deep almost crimson tints of the azalea, and the laurel with its clusters of enamel-like flowers, giving a festive air to many a wooded roadside or recent clearing. In summer the yellow daisies, sunflowers and goldenrods get the upper hand, miniature suns to reflect the gold of the sunbeams. With autumn come the lavender and purple asters, turning the

roadside to a mass of color, vying with the hue of the distant monntains and the color of the departing blue-bird's back. Then, with the approach of winter, the leaves, for a brief time, have their chance, and give to the woods an unrivaled glow of reds and yellows, a great masquerade when scarlet sumacs, sassafras and maples vie with the crimson of woodbines, oaks and dogwoods, the glossy brown of certain oaks, the yellow of beech and poplar; while, in a humble way, the red berries of the bittersweet, thorn-apple and nightshade brighten up their individual corners.

We might also take up the individual flowers which add to the picturesque or artistic features of highway and byway;the bugbane whose tall white spires gleam from out hillside clearings like torches; the tall meadow rue with its drooping white fringes and oddly cut leaflets standing out against the deep green of the meadow with an outlandish air, like a bit of Japanese embroidery; the fringed gentian, most lovely and indescribable of flowers, with its silvery blue long-fringed petals; the swamp milk-weed and Joe Pye's weed, in dull old rose tints; the butterfly weed with its masses of vivid orange color;-all these and many more we might dwell upon.

And, as all this panorama of the seasons rises before us, it is difficult to imagine how any one can say that we have an insignificant native flora. It is without doubt a flora new to literature. Generations of poets have not studied it and written of it; we have no Shelley or Keats with whose ears to listen to the melody of our birds; no Chaucer Shakespeare or Wordsworth to bind our hearts to our native flora. Our country is both too large and too young for any local flower or bird to have the reputation of the English primrose or skylark. To be sure our poets of the last century have not neglected nature, particularly in this part of the country that has been longest settled. Our arbutus, mayflower, and fringed gentian have been celebrated in verse; and many of our birds; Bryant's "Waterfowl," Thaxter's "Sandpiper,' Trowbridge's "Pewee," Emerson's "Chickadee," VanDyke's "Veery"-all these are admirable. But still, there are our thrushes, orioles, and bobolinks which have not the place in general literature which they deserve. One does not reckon them instinctively among the

charms of the country, as one would the nightingale, and the hawthorn hedges and cowslip meadows of England.

But, if our literature furnishes as yet no such guide-posts to nature as does that of England, there is the added zest to our walks and drives of uncertainty and personal discovery. We may go out like Columbus in search of new worlds, and discover for ourselves many unsuspected beauties in tree and flower, new bird melodies, new haunts for old species, or new species themselves,-in short, everywhere, we may find "a fresh footpath, a fresh flower, a fresh delight." Athens, Bradford Co., Pa.

THE

LOUIS AGASSIZ.

BY W. J. STILLMAN.

HE whole Saranac community was on the qui vive, not to see Emerson or Lowell, of whom they knew nothing, but Agassiz, who had become famous in the commonplace world through having refused, not long before, an offer from the Emperor of the French of the keepership of the Jardin des Plartes and a senatorship, if he would come to Paris and live. Such an incredible and disinterested love for America and science in our hemisphere had lifted Agassiz into an elevation of popularity which was beyond all scientific or political dignity, and the selectmen of the town appointed a deputation to welcome him and his friends to the region. A reception was accorded, and they came, having taken care to provide themselves with an engraved portrait of the scientist, to guard against a personation and waste of their respects. The head of the deputation, after having carefully compared Agassiz to the engraving, turned gravely to his followers and said, "Yes, it's him," and they proceeded with the same gravity to shake bands in their order, ignoring all the other luminaries.

Agassiz was, of all our company, the acknowledged Master, loved by all, even to the unlettered woodsman who ran to meet his service. He was the largest in personality and in universality of knowledge of all the men I have ever known. No one who did not know him personally can conceive the hold he had on everybody who came into relations with him. His vast knowledge of scien

tific facts, and his ready command of them for all educational purposes, his enthusiasm for science and the diffusion of it, even his fascinating way of imparting it to others, had even less to do with his popularity than the magnetism of his presence, and the sympathetic faculty which enabled him to find at once the plane on which he should meet whoever he had to deal with. Of his scientific position I cannot speak, though I can see that his was the most powerful of the scientific influences of that epoch in America-Atlantic Monthly.

LEARNING TO THINK ON ONE'S FEET.

ONE day I was visiting in a third grade

primary school. The teacher took up a box of pictures, cut from all sorts of publications, and silently passed them to the children. A three minutes' silence followed while each child studied his picture thoughtfully. The teacher softly tapped her pencil, the class were ready, picture in hand.

"Jennie may begin," said the teacher. A little girl stood in the aisle and without a break or hesitation described this picture. "I have the picture of a little girl leaning on the table. She has both elbows on the table and she is resting her face in her hands. She does not seem to be tired-her face does not look like that. She is thinking very hard about something. There is a flat picture-book or a magazine on the table before, her but she is not looking at it. Perhaps she has been looking at it and that made her think of something else. Her thoughts seem to be a good ways off; just as grown people look sometimes when they see things that nobody else does. I do not see anything else in my picture."

Next a boy was called upon to talk about his picture. He rose at once, and said: "A lot of brownies are rolling a big snow-ball in my picture. They are dancing around the big ball, except one, and he is dancing on top of the snow-ball. They say the brownies always do everything we do, though we cannot see them. I remember that you told us once that there were no wicked brownies as there are wicked fairies, but that brownies do innocent things for the fun of it. A great artist named Palmer Cox makes the best brownies."

A half dozen more children followed in description of all sorts of pictures, showing wonderful ease and facility in expression. They didn't try to have something to say, nor have any doubt as to what they were going to say. To say a few things about each picture, in a concise way was all that was required of them. They knew when they had finished, and were never questioned or asked to "see" more in these pictures. They talked so well that a blind listener would never have suspected that these children were not reading from a book.

What is the purpose of this exercise?" I asked. "To teach them to see quickly in a given time and to think on their feet," was the reply. "There is something in a standing position, you know, that makes it difficult for us to think and express ourselves smoothly. So I have this exercise frequently with the best results. The children talk better in all their lessons for this exercise, and I hope they will not be blundering talkers before audiences when they grow up-especially the girls," she added with a significant smile.Primary Education.

FIRST TWFNTY YEARS OF LIFE.

REV. T. E. MONROE.

Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy yonth, and walk in the ways of thy heart and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. -Ecclesiastes xi. 9.

THE

THE text is a concrete expression of the priceless value of youth, and of the irretrievable loss when it is wasted. There are twenty years from childhood to manhood-twenty years for the maturing and training and endowment of a man. And I plead with you this morning for the priceless value of those twenty years.

I plead for these priceless twenty years, first because human education is limited to that period. One man perhaps in hundreds will obtain an education later in life, not more. Young men training for professional life continue their studies. beyond this limit. But still it is true that the education of the people is limited to this first twenty years; and their equipment for the struggle of existence must be furnished during this time. So important is this question esteemed by

our legislators that the education of the child is carefully protected from encroachment. It becomes compulsory from six to fifteen years with the young man; from six to sixteen with the young woman. It is a crime to place a boy under fifteen in a manufactory, or shop, or office, during school hours, or a girl before she is sixteen. And these laws are necessary to protect children from their parents parents whose apathy, whose want of aspiration for a higher life for their children, leads them to sacrifice them, and from indolent fathers who would willingly live on the toil of their minor children. Remember, the less education men have the less they prize it. Now, it does not seem practicable to prolong this education, but in God's providence it is being projected backward today. The kindergarten takes the child, not at six, but at four, and by its admirable training prepares the child for a swifter career when it enters upon its full

course.

The first period is that of the kindergarten. The child is all eye, and ear, and touch, and imagination. It was a marvelous discovery (I almost call it Divine revelation), when God communicated to Froebel the kindergarten thought that a child's play is God's school; that the little child is learning to be a man or a woman by the instincts of its own nature, imitating its father or mother. The young queen of Holland, when her mother's prime minister sat at the table, went to him with great solicitude and said, "Your Excellency, I do not think you ought to remain to supper." "Why?" he says, "Why?" 'My dollies all have the measles, and you might get them," she said. What was it? It was an imagination so vivid that it became a reality.

Now, during this period of the first culture through the senses, the mother and the teacher are fellow workers. Mother and teacher sit at the fountain of life and drop into the living.water great truths, gems of knowledge, the principles of morality and of religion. I have illustrated the imagination of a young child. I read last week a debate in a mother's meeting, I think, in New York City. A young girl, three years old, said to her mother, Mamma, I saw a great 'bid' elephant on the fence." That was taken to the mothers' meeting to meeting to decide whether it was a lie or a vivid imagina

tion, and that company of mothers, debating over it for an afternoon, could not decide or could not agree. It is a beautiful example of the vivid imagination of a child that makes the pictures of its heart real. Eighteen years ago I was on the platform at Cuyahoga Falls, and there was a little girl, perhaps three years old-she is married now; she came up to me and said, "Mr. Monroe, I have seen a beautiful lady riding on a 'tow' (cow)." My first thought was, she had seen a lady on horseback. I asked her nurse, who was with her, "Have you seen any lady riding?" 'No, no." But something had made the picture on the imagination of that child of a beautiful woman riding a cow. Grotesque to us, but vividly and beautifully real to that young child-the vivid imagination of a child. I read in the press that a father went to his home, and as he opened the door with his latch key he heard his little daughter saying, “Oh, I am so hot, I am so hot, I am so hot! I can't stand it." And her voice had such suffering in it he went to her and said," My dear, what are you standing on the hot register for, why don't you get off?" She says, "Papa, I can't, we are playing hell; Tommy is in heaven, I am in hell, I cannot get off." So had she entered into the child-play that while suffering from the hot register and the furnace heat she could not leave it.

The principal of our leading private kindergarten says, that during all her experience in teaching, while the children of the kindergartens play at almost everything, they play the landing of the Pilgrims, they play Washington's birthday, but they never play the birth of Christ. They draw the most delicately refined line of propriety around the personality of the Saviour, and never cross it.

Oh,

I have tried to give you a conviction of the matchless beauty and delicacy of a child's heart and imagination. blessed be the wise mothers and teachers who are decorating the clean walls of a child's imagination with visions of beauty and purity! and cursed be the man who brands an unholy thought on the pure white-chambered walls of her soul, a picture of sin!

The second period of education is the memory period, when, as in the first stage, the child is all eye, and ear, and touch, and imagination, and these faculties still remain vivid, yet the child be

comes all memory. The master work of memory must be done then or never. You can never become an expert grammarian unless you master grammar in those early years. You can never become a fine classical scholar unless you study the classics in your early life. You will never have a large vocabulary unless you study literature in that period of memory when the impression is indelible. I have seen a woman ninety-eight years old, out of whose memory forty years had been obliterated, telling the minutest events of her early life, and going over again little child events and conversations which happened ninety years before.

The memories and impressions of early childhood are as indelible as life, so that language and literature belong to this period, and especially the reading of the great classic literature of our grand language and the unparalleled literature of the Bible. I have feared that our modern text-books of reading in the public schools were dropping out the great master-pieces of classic English the children used to memorize and retain, and which unconsciously formed their style of thought and expression. As you cannot master the piano if you do not begin to practice before twelve, so you cannot master the literature of the world unless you begin early in life, while the memory is alert and vivid.

The third period, the child enters upon a state of judgment, maturer knowledge, and then come the information studies of our high schools that have no end, for no one man masters the knowledge of this world to-day. It is too large and broad. I plead, then, for the priceless value of the first twenty years of a life: I might as truthfully say fifteen. For education allowed to lapse, the loss is irreparable.

Again, I plead the priceless value of these twenty years for manual skill. The young man, before he is twenty, must have acquired some manual skill or remain a drudge for life.

The Duke of Devonshire introduced a bill in the last parliament to require technical studies in the British schools, and he said, "Gentlemen, you must do this or lose your superiority in trade. Germany has put technical studies in her public schools, France has done it, they are invading our markets here in the heart of England, and we must follow their example."