



34 THE TEACHING BOTANIST 



older, how the veins branch and end in the leaf, where 

 the flowers appear, etc., will afford extremely good 

 materials for training in observation, and of the most 

 direct sort. Tools may gradually be introduced as the 

 need for them is felt, at first but a knife for simple 

 dissection, then a lens to help the eye, and later the 

 dissecting microscope to aid hand and eye together. 

 It is only after much practice with these simple appli- 

 ances that the compound microscope should be intro- 

 duced, and then in such a way as to impress upon 

 students its true function as simply an aid to vision. 

 To begin a course with objects needing the use of the 

 compound microscope, that is, to introduce the use of 

 the most special tool before eye and hand have had 

 some training by themselves, is not only illogical in 

 theory, but, as I and many other teachers know from 

 experience, wasteful in practice. It produces a long 

 and despairing floundering about from which balance 

 and stability are but slowly regained. Moreover, it 

 impresses a wrong ideal of scientific work, implying 

 as it does that there is some sovereign virtue in elabo- 

 rate instruments, thus tending to elevate these to a 

 rank above their proper grade of mere aids to eye 

 and hand. After the use of this instrument has been 

 learned, however, microscopical anatomy is one of the 

 best of disciplines for training in observation. 



Next among the scientific instincts I would place 

 that for critical comparison and generalization, the 



