40 THE TEACHING BOTANIST 



faculties are correct, it follows that no good botanical 

 course aiming at real scientific training can afford to 

 confine itself to any one phase of the subject, but 

 must treat it synthetically to realize its best possibili- 

 ties. It is true no ordinary course can carry out this 

 plan to its logical extreme, but it sets an ideal toward 

 which to work. 



We must next ask what Botany is of most worth as 

 knowledge to the average man of education. An ele- 

 mentary course must take careful account of this, since 

 the great majority of students go no further in the sub- 

 ject, and the course must be made complete in itself for 

 them, as well as a foundation for those who do continue 

 into higher work. The most important knowledge, I 

 should say, is that which, when a man looks upon the 

 world of plants, enables him to know those facts and 

 principles about them which are most fundamental, 

 wide-reaching, and illuminating. Such are, - - the real 

 position of plants in nature, how they live, why they 

 have their shapes and colors, how they are made, how 

 each one fits so exactly its individual surroundings, and 

 what are the principal kinds of them. To understand 

 their real place in nature, one must know at first hand 

 the process of food-making in sunlight through chloro- 

 phyll, and what it means to other organisms ; to know 

 how they live, one must know their leading physiologi- 

 cal processes, absorption, respiration, reproduction ; to 

 know how they are made, one must know the nature 



