Plants and their children

by Frances Theodora Parsons

Part VII—Learning to See

A BAD HABIT

In fact, if you are to see any of the things that are really worth seeing, you must study the art of using your eyes. You must learn to see.

This world is full of things that are beautiful and interesting, things that do not cost money, that can be had for the seeing.

School is nearly over now, and during the weeks that lie before you there will be many hours which you children can call your own.

I wonder what you will do with these holiday hours?

Of course, you will play a great deal; at least, I hope you will, for we need play almost as much as we need work. But one does not play every minute, even in the holidays. I hope that all of you will spend a part of your holidays in trying to be a little useful to your mothers.

But even then there will be some time left for other things,—things that are not work, and that are not exactly play, yet that are a little of each, and so perhaps better than either play or work alone.

Among these “other things” I hope “learning to see” will find its place. I wish that every child who reads this book would make a resolution that during these coming holiday weeks he will “learn to see.”