THINGS ESSENTIAL TO BOTANICAL TEACHING 49 



tigation. Good scientific teaching consists above all 

 things in the application of that natural, independent, 

 inductive spirit which is the only basis of scientific 

 progress ; and only he can properly apply it who has 

 himself experienced it. The college graduate, if his 

 undergraduate work has been of the right sort, has 

 had some of this training, for undergraduate courses 

 at their best are carried on in the investigation spirit; 

 they constitutive a series of problems which subjec- 

 tively are original investigation, whence the transition 

 to objective investigation in the graduate courses of 

 the university is easy and natural. But in addition to 

 this, a year or more of graduate investigation will tell 

 very greatly for the better quality of the teacher's 

 work, especially if he continues investigation after- 

 ward. Where graduate study is impossible, the teacher 

 will do well to take up some problem for himself. 

 Under present conditions it is becoming nearly impos- 

 sible to do good original work in anatomy, morphol- 

 ogy, or physiology away from the facilities of the 

 universities; but happily there is a great field with 

 abundant problems in the comparatively new study of 

 ecology. The habits of even the commonest plants, 

 especially in their relations to the other organisms 

 about them, are very imperfectly known ; and there 

 is not a section of any country in which there is not 

 inviting opportunity of this kind. Especially attractive 

 at the present time are the problems of ecological 



