HOME PAGES

Welcome *
Site Map
Mission Purpose

Sub Menu to each Page of this Topic of the HOME PAGES, with normally a * after Page you are viewing.
Page Menu may also have an Index (Flower Colour, Flowering Months, Height and Width) of all plants of that type in that Topic - Plant Photo Gallery.

READING THE TEXT IN RED ON THIS PAGE WILL MAKE IT EASIER FOR YOU TO USE EACH PAGE in my educational website.

THE 2 EUREKA EFFECT PAGES FOR UNDERSTANDING SOIL AND HOW PLANTS INTERACT WITH IT OUT OF 15,000:-

• THE INTERACTION BETWEEN THE 2 QUARTZ GRAIN SIBLINGS, and
• HOW ROOTS OF PLANTS ARE IN CONTROL IN THE SOIL
• before continuing in this website.

Explanation of Structure of this Website with User Guidelines Page for those photo galleries with Photos (of either ones I have taken myself or others which have been loaned only for use on this website from external sources)

or

when I do not have my own or ones from mail-order nursery photos , then from March 2016, if you want to start from the uppermost design levels through to your choice of cultivated and wildflower plants to change your Plant Selection Process then use the following galleries:-

• Create and input all plants known by Amateur Gardening inserted into their Sanders' Encyclopaedia from their edition published in 1960 (originally published by them in 1895) into these
  • Stage 1 - Garden Style Index Gallery,
    then
  • Stage 2 - Infill Plants Index Gallery being the only gallery from these 7 with photos (from Wikimedia Commons) ,
    then
  • Stage 3 - All Plants Index Gallery with each plant species in its own Plant Type Page followed by choice from Stage 4a, 4b, 4c and/or 4d REMEMBERING THE CONSTRAINTS ON THE SELECTION FROM THE CHOICES MADE IN STAGES 1 AND 2
  • Stage 4a - 12 Bloom Colours per Month Index Gallery,
  • Stage 4b - 12 Foliage Colours per Month Index Gallery with
  • Stage 4c - Cultivation, Position, Use Index Gallery and
  • Stage 4d - Shape, Form Index Gallery
  • Unfortunately, if you want to have 100's of choices on selection of plants from 1000's of 1200 pixels wide by up to 16,300 pixels in length webpages, which you can jump to from almost any of the pages in these 7 galleries above, you have to put up with those links to those choices being on
    • the left topic menu table,
    • the header of the middle data table and on
    • the page/index menu table on the right of every page of those galleries.

• Create flower colour comparison pages and a NOTE description page for every native to the UK wildflower plant in the Wildflower galleries and
• Update the original website photo comparison pages to change to the Plant Description Page instead of adding that Plant Description Page when clicking on a thumbnail in 1 of its comparison pages.
• Update and add to the words defined in Glossary from the definitions in the Encylopaedia of Garden Work and Terms, which is also in The Gardeners' Golden Treasury, which also includes the above Sander's Encyclopaedia.

I may not spend all my time that I use to execute these tasks to just 1 of them, but try rotating to the next every so often.

These tasks may take some time during my retirement.

I hope that you find that the information in this website is useful to you:-

I like reading and that is shown by the index in my Library, where I provide lists of books to take you between designing, maintaining or building a garden and the hierarchy of books on plants taking you from

• the coffee-table book where different blue primrose cultivars occur in the prose on pages 17, 90 and 202,
• to ones where there is a table of primrose cultivars with blue flowers on a single page,
• to what plants to associate with those blue primroses and
• companion plants for them.

There are the systems for choosing plants as shown in

• Plants topic
• Garden Style Index Gallery
• Colour Wheel of All Flowers 53
• Colour Wheel of All Flowers per Month 53
• Flower Shape

Preface of

The First Book of Botany. Designed to cultivate The Observing Powers of Children by Eliza A. Youmans.
"....Not that more is taught at an early age, but less; that time is taken, that the wall is not run up in haste; that the bricks are set on carefully, and the mortar allowed time to dry" by Lord Stanley.
"You study Nature in the house, and when you go out-of-doors you cannot find her." by Professor Agassiz.
London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1 Paternoster Square. 1880

"This little book has a twofold claim upon those concerned in the work of education.

In the first place, it introduces the beginner to the study of Botany in the only way it can be properly done - by the direct observation of vegetable forms. The pupil is told very little, and from the beginning, thoughout, he is sent to the plant to get his knowledge of the plant. The book is designed to help him in this work, never to supersede it. Instead of memorizing the statements of others, he brings a report of the living reality as he sees it; it is the things themselves that are to be examined, questioned, and understood. The true basis of a knowledge of Botany is that familiarity with the actual characters of plants, which can only be obtained by direct and habitual inspection of them. The beginner should therefore commence with the actual specimens, and learn to distinguish those external characters which lie open to observation; the knowledge of which leads naturally to that arrangement by related attributes which constitutes classification.

But the present book has a still stronger claim to attention; it develops a new method of study which is designed to correct that which is confessedly the deepest defect of out current education. This defect is the almost total lack of any systematic cultivation of the observing powers. Although all real knowledge begins in attention at things, and consists in the discrimination and comparison of the likenesses and differences among objects; yet, strange to say, in our vaunted system of instruction there is no provision for the regular training of the perceptive faculties. That which should be first and fundamental is hardly attended to at all. We train in mathematics, and cram the contents of books, but do little to exercise the mind upon the realities of Nature, or to make it alert, sensitive, and intelligent, in respect to the order of the surrounding world.

Something, indeed, has been done in the way of object-teaching, although but little of that is satisfactory. These exercises are notoriously loose, desultory, incoherent, and superficial, and hardly deserve the name of mental training. What is wanted is, that object-studies shall become more close and methodic, and that the observations shall be wrought into connected and organized knowledge. It is the merit of Botany that, beyond all other studies, it is suited to the attainment of this end. Plants furnish abundant and ever-varying materials for observation. The elementary facts of Botany are so simple that their study can be commenced in early childhood, and so numerous as to sustain a prolonged course of observation. From the most rudimentarty facts the pupil may proceed gradually to the more complex; from the concrete to the abstract; from observation to the truths resting upon observation, in a natural order of ascent, as required by the laws of mental growth. The means are thus furnished for organizing object-teaching into a systematic method, so that it may be pursued continuously through a course of successively higher and more comprehensive exercises. Carried out in this way, Botany is capable of doing for the observing powers of the mind what mathematics does for its reasoning powers.

Moreover, accuracy of observation requires accuracy of description; precision of thought implies precision in the use of language. Here, again, Botany has superior advantages. Its vocabulary is more copious, precise, and well settled, than that of any other of the natural sciences; it is thus unrivalled in the scope it offers for the cultivation of the descriptive powers.

On purely mental grounds, therefore, and as a means of attaining the most needed of educational reforms, Botany has a claim to be admitted as a fourth fundamental branch of common-school study; and the hope of contributing something to this end has been the author's main incitement in the preparation of this rudimentary work.

It is needful here to state that the method of instruction developed in these pages is no mere educational novelty; it has been tested, and its fitness for the end proposed has been shown in practice. The schedule feature which is here fully brought out, and which is its leading peculiarity as a mode of study, was devised and successfully used by Professor J.S. Henslow, of Cambridge, England. My attention was first drawn to it as I was looking about in the educational department of the South Kensington Museum, in London. In a show-case of botanical specimens, I noticed some slates covered with childish writing, which proved to be illustrations of a method of teaching Botany to the young. They were furnished by Professor Henslow for the International Exhibition of 1851. He died without publishing his method, but not without having subjected it to thorough practical trial. He had gathered together a class of poor country children, in the parish where he officiated as clergyman, and taught them Botany by a plan similar to the present, though less simplified. The results of this experiment have been given to the public by Dr J. D. Hooker, Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens at Kew, who was summoned to give evidence upon the subject before a Parliamentary Commission on Education.

The following interesting passages from his testimony will give an idea of Professor Henslow's methods of proceeding and its results:

Question. Have you ever turned your attention at all to the possibilty of teaching Botany to boys in classes at school?

Answer. I have thought that it might be done very easily; that this deficiency might be easily remedied.

Q. What are your ideas on the subject?

A. My own ideas are chiefly drawn from the experience of my father-in-law, the late Professor Henslow, Professor of Botany at Cambridge. He introduced Botany into one of the lowest possible class of schools - that of village laborers' children in a remote part of Suffolk.

Q. Perhaps you will have the goodness to tell us the system he pursued?

A. It was an entirely voluntary system. He offered to enroll the school children in a class to be taught Botany once a week. The number of children in the class was limited, I think, to 42. As his parish contained only 1000 inhabitants, there never were, I suppose, the full 42 children in their class; their ages ranged from about 8 years old to about 14 or 15. The class mostly consisted of girls... He required that, before they were enrolled in the class, they should be able to spell a few elementary botanical terms, including some of the most difficult to spell, and those that were the most essential to begin with. Those who brought proof that they could do this were put into the third class; then they were taught once a week, by himself generally, for an hour or an hour and a half, sometimes for 2 hours (for they were exceedingly fond of it).

Q. Did he use to take them out in the country, or was it simply lessons in school?

A. He left them to collect for themselves; but he visited his parish daily, when the children used to come up to him, and bring the plants they had collected; so that the lessons went on all the week round. There was only 1 day in the week on which definite instruction was given to the class; but on Sunday afternoon he used to allow the senior class, and those who got marks at the examinations, to attend at his house...

Q. Did he find any difficulty in teaching this subject in class?

A. None whatever; less than he would have had in dealing with almost any other subject.

Q. Do you know in what way he taught it? did he illustrate it?

A. Invariably; he made it practical. He made it an objective study. The children were taught to know the plants, and to pull them to pieces; to give their proper names to the parts; to indicate the relations of the parts to one another; and to find out the relation of one plant to another by the knowledge thus obtained.

Q. They were children, you say, generally from 8 to 12?

A. and up to 14.

Q. and they learned it readily?

A. Readily and voluntarily, entirely.

Q. and were interested in it?

A. Extremely interested in it. They were exceedingly fond of it.

Q. Do you happen to know whether Professor Henslow thought that the study of Botany developed the faculties of the mind - that it taught these children to think? and do you know whether he perceived any improvement in their mental faculties from that?

A. Yes; he used to think it was the most important agent that could be employed for cultivating their faculties of observation, and for strengthening their reasoning powers.

Q. He really thought that he had arrived at a practical result?

A. Undoubtedly; and so did every one who visited the school or the parish.

Q. They were children of quite the lower class?

A. The laboring agricultural class.

Q. and in other branches receiving the most elementary instruction?

A. Yes.

Q. And Professor Henslow thought that their minds were more developed; that they were become more reasoning beings, from having this study super-added to the others?

A. Most decidely. It was also the opinion of some of the inspectors of schools, who came to visit him, that such children were in general more intelligent than those of other parishes; and they attribute the difference to their observant and reasoning faculties being thus developed...

Q. So that the intellectual success of this objective study was beyond question?

A. Beyond question....In conducting the examinations of medical men for the army, which I have now conducted for several years, and those for the East-India Company's Service, which I have conducted for, I think, 7 years, the questions which I am the habit of putting, and which are NOT answered by the majority of candidates, are what would have been answered by the children in Professor Henslow's village-school. I believe the chief reason to be, that these students' observing faculties, as children, had never been trained - such faculties having lain dormant with those who naturally possessed them in a high degree; and having never been developed, by training, in those who possessed them in a low degree. In most medical schools, the whole sum and substance of botanical science is crammed into a few weeks of lectures, and the men leave the class without having acquired an accurate knowledge of the merest elements of the science....

The printed form or schedule contrived by Professor Henslow, and used in these classes, applied only to the flower, the most complex part of the plant, and the attention of children was directed by it chiefly to those features upon which orders depend in classification. But, instead of confining its use to the study of a special part of plant-structure, it seemed to me to apply equally to the whole course of descriptive Botany, and to be capable of becoming a most efficient instrument of regular observational training. I accordingly prepared a simplified series of exercises on this plan, and used them to guide some little children in studying the plants of the neighborhood; and, had this experiment not been regarded, by those who witnessed it, as a success, the book embodying these exercises would not now appear.

The successful experience here referred to, which led to the publication of this book, has now been decisely confirmed by the public after a year's trial with it. It has had an extensive sale, has been introduced into many schools of all grades, has been much used by private students, and has been approved with a unanimity and earnestness quite unprecedented in the history of school-books based upon new methods of teaching.

A new edition now appears, with several additional chapters treating of the seed, germination, buds, the aspects of woody plants, etc. The descriptions will here be more full and general, but the plan of describing only the results of actual observations is still adhered to. Questions are asked, but no answers are given; these are to be got by direct inspection of the objects. Some simple experiments for the cildren to make are introduced, and they will now be more occupied in watching the changes which take place in the different parts of plants.

In arranging a course of observations for beginners in Botany, only those have been selected which may be made with the naked eye. In another book now in preparation the same plan of schedule study will be carried out, and provision made for more close and extended observations, requiring the help of magifying-glasses.

There have been attempts to teach classes by the schedule method of this work by means of the blackboard, and without the book, but all such attempts are volations of the method. Botany cannot be "taught" by this system, for the very essence and soul of it is that the pupil is himself to find out what he wants to know. For repetition, comparison, and verification, constant reference to past exercises is required, which makes it indispensable that plant and book should go together. Only as a manual of practice, in individual observation, can the present work subserve the purpose for which it was prepared.

Suggestions to Teachers.

The method to be pursued by the aid of this book is the following: The child, whether at home or at school, first of all collects some specimens of plants - almost any will answer the purpose in commencing. These consist of organs, each of which is made up of different parts, and these vary in form and structure continually in different species. The object of the learner is to find out these parts or characters, and to learn their names, so as to be able to describe them.

The beginner, of course, must start with the simplest characters. Turning to the first exercises, for example, he finds the parts of leaves represented by pictures accompanied by the names applied to them. Guided by these, he refers to his specimens, and finds the real things which the pictures and the words represent. When a few characters are fixed in the mind by 2 or 3 exercises, he will commence the practice of noting down what he observes. For this purpose a form, or schedule, is used, containing questions which indicate what he is to search for. Models of these schedules, filled out, are given in the successive exercises: the pupil will make them for himself with pencil and paper (see Note below). He now carefully observes his specimen, and writes down the characters it possesses, with which he has thus far become acquainted. Having done this, he pins the specimen to the paper describing it, and brings it to the teacher as the report of his observation and judgement in the case.

This operation is constantly repeated upon varying forms, and slowly extended by the addition of new characters. He then goes on discovering new parts and acquiring their names - noting the variations of those parts and the names of their variations. The schedules guide him forward in the right direction, and hold him steadily to the essential work of excersising his faculties upon the living objects before him. In every fresh collection of plants, new plants and new relations will solicit the attention, and will have to be observed, compared, and recorded. Particular kinds of plants, let it be remembered, are not described in the book - they are not even named; the object is, by constant practice and repetition, to train the pupil to find out the characters of any that come in his way, and make his own descriptions.

An aquaintance with Botany, although of course desirable, is not indispensable in using these exercises. Any teacher or parent who is willing to take the necessary pains can conduct the children through them without difficulty; and if they will become fellow-students with them all the better. The child is not so much to be taught, as to instruct himself. The very essence of the plan is, that he is to make his own way, and rely on nobody else; it is intended for self-development. Mistakes will, of course, be made; but the whole method is self-correcting, and the pupil, as he goes forward, will be constantly rectifying his past errors. The object is less to get perfect results at first than to get the pupil's opinion upon the basis of his own observations.

Children can begin to study plants successfully by this method at 6 or 7 years of age, or as soon as they can write. But close observations should not be required from young beginners, nor the exercises be prolonged to weariness. The transition from the unconcious and spontaneous observations of children to conscious observation with a definite purpose should be gradual, beginning and continuing for some time with the easiest exercises upon the most simple and obvious characters.

Note
I have thought it desirable also to present the whole set, at the end of the volume, with the answers omitted, to illustrate at a glance the scope of the first series of observations. As the pupil is to be constantly engaged in schedule practice, and as the schedules are not to be preserved, the cheapest kind of paper will answer, and it can of course used on both sides. Slates will do just as well; but then the desription must be numbered, and a corresponding number attached to the specimen, so that they can be compared by the teacher.

BOOK CONTENTS

Chapter I. - THE LEAF

Ex. 1. The parts of a Leaf

Ex. 2. The parts of a Grass-Leaf

Ex. 3. Venation

Ex. 4. The framework and its Parts

Ex. 5. Feather-veined and Palmate-veined Leaves

Ex. 6. Margins

Ex. 7. Bases

Ex. 9. Forms of Lobes

Ex. 10. Forms of Sinuses

Ex. 11. Kinds of Leaves

Ex. 12. Shapes of Leaves

Ex. 13. Petioles, Surfaces, and Colors

Ex. 14. Simple and Compound Leaves

Ex. 15. Parts of Compound Leaves

Ex. 16. Pinnate and Digitate Leaves

Ex. 17. Varieties of Pinnate Leaves

Ex. 18. Varieties of Digitate Leaves

Ex. 19. Forms of Stipules

Ex. 20. Examples of Description

Chapter II. - THE STEM

Ex. 21-27

Chapter III. - THE INFLORESCENCE

Ex. 28-34

Chapter IV. - THE FLOWER

Ex. 35-50

Chapter V. - THE ROOT

Ex. 51-53

EXAMPLES IN PLANT DESCRIPTION

Chapter VI. - THE SEED

Ex. 54-57

Chapter VII. - WOODY PLANTS

Ex. 58-62

Chapter VIII. - THE LEAF-BUD

Ex. 63-64

Chapter IX. - STEM AND ROOT

Ex. 65-66

Chapter X. - FRUIT

Ex. 67-69

Chapter XI. - THE ACTIONS OF PLANTS

Ex. 70

LEAF SCHEDULES

STEM SHEDULES

INFLORESCENCE SCHEDULES

FLOWER SCHEDULES

The ethos of the above book is what students at Universtity should do instead of taking down what is written on a blackboard, rote-learning it and spewing it forth at the exams ( which was what I had to do at the end of a year studying Polymer Chemistry at university, so I changed my study to Psychology and then earned my degree).

At University they should be taught:-

• concepts - like a building has walls, floors, a roof, doors and windows.
• Then, if the house is to be built of brick,
  they should fully understand each type of brick (facing, commons, foundation,engineering, etc),
  but not learn the full list of every brickmaking business who produce each type of brick in every country.
• They should understand the concept and not learn all the details - as long as they know where to look to get the list containing the relevant facing brick for the type of house they intend to build in that specific location.
• A student is to think and produce an answer from those thoughts and to not only regurgitate data as an answer to an essay or exam. Then to use that concept system following university in their work and play.

After I had my degree in Psycholgy, as part of my job as a Laboratory Technician, I taught Computer Science to Architecture students during 6 hours of lectures. They learnt Computer Hardware, Computer Software, Flowcharting, Documentation and the Fortran language using my type written notes for each lecture and a copy of them was shown to them on transparency film for an overhead projector. The next lecture notes were given to them at the end of the previous weekly 1 hour lecture. After all the lectures, I then split them into teams and during 2 afternoons they had to produce a statistical program analyzing 1 of their lab experiments, as well as document, flowchart and run it to get their answers.
In 14 hours those pupils received sufficient education to get more than 75% for each pupil in his/her computer science exam results from questions on writing a fortran program, flowcharting a program and a waffle at the end of the year. The results were verified by the Computer Science Department.

In order to live with my fiancee and then wife, I moved location and job to become a software engineer in military avionics. I wrote machine code and documentation over 14 years for many different computers:-

• for 44 computers in the test rigs to transmit sensor data to the Sea King Helicopter Computer System,
• to create the first display software for Sat Nav for military helicopters using digitised paper maps, and
• to create the display software for the Nimrod Tactical and Routine Navigators (in doing so, I also produced 2100 A3 pages of typed dicumentation for those Navigators in Levels, 1,2,3 and 4).

The above jobs demontrate that at University you should learn to think to solve a situation after you leave; and it does not matter if you never use the information that you absorbed at University on that course.

I have created a 32 A5 page booklet describing how to design, construct and maintain a private garden and had 1000 published and gave them to prospective clients, so that I could demonstrate that I knew how to look after their gardens. I have about 10 left.

So in 2006 I bought a Mac-Mini and started this website.

• I started with 40 Mb cartridge tapes for archiving. My 40Mb archiving tape machine broke, so I replaced it. The newer version did not read 40 Mb tapes.
• So I bought a CD reader/writer, since my Mac-mini had a Cd reader.
• My Mac-mini I bought in mid 2011 does not have a CD reader.
• So I bought external disk drives. I filled them up, so in March 2016 I bought 2 more with Western Digital software and then had problems with the system kernel panics telling me to shut down the computer, so in May I took it to Apple, who returned it a week later stating that it had passed all tests. It continued to fail so went back again 2 months later for a fortnight having been told it was a USB device problem. After a week, I requested that since the power board and logic board had heated that those were replaced and the internal disc as well. That having been done I got it back, so I thought I had better make sure that the disks I would use for archiving came from Aplle so bought 2 more archive disks from Apple, a new keyboard and mouse. Unfortunately, I did not realise that the new wireless mouse and keyboard would only work with a 2 version higher operating system as detailed in their written installation instructions, than I had. The same kernel panic attacks continued.
• When I visited an Apple Recommended Repair firm, they discovered that the Western Digital Software from the set of archive disks used in March to July was continually crashing with its report file on my computer, even though neither of those disks were attached. The firm removed the software and put into a folder on my desktop, which I have now sent to trash. I bought 2 more archive disks from and in the last 22 hours, I have reformatted them and archived onto each, received my email, changed a couple of sections of my website and uploaded them and left my computer in the condition set up by that Apple Recommended Repair firm. I hope that it will continue to work for some years.

The architecture in my Mac-Mini is usually changed on a regular basis from an early to a mid and then to late - the latest Mac-Mini is a late 2014 and it is expected that during the winter of 2017 that the early of the next version will become available.
My publishing program Freeway Professional version 5 has been loaded onto the next version of the Mac operating system to mine and to the current El Capitan by the Apple Recommended Repair firm, who states that it loads when requested. I cannot use the latest version of Freeway probably due to the previous versions being written for a 32k machine and version 6 for a bigger machine.
When Apple stop selling a product, they will still stock the components for another 5 years. My Mac-Mini of 2011 reached its stop point in 2012 and so 2017 will be the last year that Apple will stock its components.
I have requested the Apple Recommended Repair Firm to put together a new Mac with 2 displays, keyboard, mouse, airport extreme or its equivalent and use the 2 new archive discs as archives, with a book page scanner, and printer package for me to see if that will produce the same output as my present Mac-Mini. I have stated that I will pay them for the equipment and installation irrespective of whether it works or not, since it will then become second-hand if it is of no use to me, when they re-sell it. That new computer should still be for sale for a few years and its components for a few more so that I can continue to output this educational website for my 4th visitor to see in March 2023. I pay for all the costs of this website and neither sells, nor buys anything, nor does it take or give commission.
Unfortunately if I google a plant currently, sometimes when I request to look at one of their answers I am refused because I do have the necessary widget to read it, whereas with a new compter and the latest operating system, I probably would be able to.
I am grateful that 1 person in 10 minutes can locate the Western Digital crashes report file on my computer from the Apple Recommended Repair Firm, instead of the effort carried out from within 250 personnel at Apple over a 1 week and a later 2 week period not being able to.

The above shows some of the problems involved in creating something for the internet which takes a very long time.
I asked Freeway to amend their program to allow a table to be greater than 16k long on a page and that one could add more rows after 9999 pixels, but they have not.
I am trying to provide you with enough detail to choose and grow your own plants with a Joe Public notion of how things are rather than the complete detail shown using botanical language to describe a plant, instead of a coffee-table book of photos, which do not provide the cultural requirements.
I am being defeated by:-

• time (aged 68),
• health (added diabetes and glaucoma to my list of diseases including heart failure, respiratory problems, water retention and pituary land tumour this year - 2016) and
• a computer system that will last and output a website for more than 5 years.

If you decide to download any of the pages of this website for use in your own website, then I suggest that you only use the data and graphics but not this table layout system, since this is not the current fashion and you will have problems in adding to that new page on your website in the future. You might be able to replicate it using CSS layouts.

I have designed and constructed a garden in her rented property for a primary school teacher. If the children were good on a school day, then at the end of the day, she would read them a story. Surprising how the children loved hearing the stories.

Alice B. Gomme in the nineteenth century with her husband assembled 'The Traditional Games of England, Scotland and Ireland' into 2 volumes:-

"The traditional games of a nation excite interest not only as a means of amusement, but also as a means of obtaining an insight into the customs and beliefs of that nation. This book list, describes, and analyzes over 600 games traditionally played in England, Scotland and Ireland. It is the most authoritative treatment of the subject ever produced, and contains much information that cannot be found elsewhere. It contains everything known about British children's games, both from folkloristic field rsearch and literary records daing back to the middle ages.

The games are arranged in alphabetical order according to the title usually accorded the gme. The non-singing games are described in terms of basic types, variants, and origins. For the singing games, the author gives the tune and all the different versions of the game-rhyme; the method of playing the game; an analysis table that shows where the variant versions of the game-rhyme are found and indicates similarities and dfferences among them; a careful discussion of the results of this analysis so far as the different versions allow; and an attempt to deduce from the evidence suggestions as to the probable origin of the game, with references to earlier authorities and other facts bearing upon the subject.

The treatment of all the games is lucid and very thorough: the game called "Sally Water", for example, covers 30 pages, including an analysis table that records variants from 43 locales. The illustrations will help the reader understand the different actions where the method of play is complex, or where there are several changes in the form of the game. Finally, the essay subjoined to the text proper contains fruitful commentary on all aspects of the study of children's games.

Folklorists and anthropologists will wish to have this book as a reference tool, whle recreation leaders, teachers, parents, and all others who are directly concerned with young people will find it a useful source for new games for their children."

A Dover edition designed for years of use!
We have spared no pains to make this the best book possible. Our paper is opaque, with minimal show-through, it will not discolor or become brittle with age. Pages are sewn in signatures, in the method traditionally used for the best books.Books open flat for easy reference. Pages will not drop out, as often happens with paperbacks held together with glue. The binding will not crack and split. This is a permanent book.
This Dover edition, first published in 1964, is an unabridged and corrected republication of the work first published by David Nutt, London, as Part I of the Dictionary of British Folk-Lore. Volume I was first published in 1894, and Volume II was first published in 1898.