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Excerpt from First Studies of Life For a long time botanical science, in the popular mind, consisted chiefly of pulling flowers to pieces and finding their Latin names by the use of the analytical key. All the careful descriptions of the habits of s in the classic books were viewed solely as conducive to accuracy in placing the proper label upon arium specimens. Long after the study of botany in the universities had become biological rather than purely systematic, the old regime held sway in our secondary schools; and perhaps, some of us to-day know of high schools still working in the twilight of that first ray that pierced primeval darkness. However, this has practically passed away, and to-day life and its problems, its successes and its failures, absorb the attention of the botanist and zoologist. The knowledge of the name of the or animal is simply a convenience for discrimination and reference. The systematic relations of a or animal are used in showing present anatomical affinities and past development. The absorbing themes of investigation and study are the life processes and the means by which the organisms living in the world to-day have climbed upward and placed themselves in the great realm of the "fit." When the idea of nature study first dawned in the educational world, it was inevitably confused with the sciences on which it was based. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.