58 THE TEACHING BOTANIST 



couragement or criticism, and from time to time, as 

 the progress of the work requires, making suggestions, 

 explanations, or summaries to the class as a whole, and 

 closing each period by a summary of the work of the 

 day. This plan does not in the least interfere with 

 the independence and value of individual work by the 

 students, and, on the average, seems to me the most 

 economical for conducting elementary classes. 



In the matter of order, etc., in the laboratory, the 

 teacher must be careful to preserve the free and home- 

 like spirit so essential to natural methods of working. 

 Considerable freedom of movement and conversation 

 must be allowed. Indeed, a silent laboratory would be a 

 most depressing place. Students should, of course, be 

 expected to keep their own places and instruments in 

 good order, and to take a corporate pride in the appear- 

 ance of the laboratory as a whole. They should learn 

 to put away every tool after using, as an integral part 

 of the very act of using. They should learn also to 

 work in physical comfort and with deliberation, and 

 to be exact and neat in all their work, doing it not 

 simply well, but the best they can. But of course 

 order and neatness can be carried too far ; and there is, 

 as in other things, a certain optimum of neatness and 

 order about a laboratory that should be aimed at, 

 rather than the maximum, which demands an undue 

 and uneconomical expenditure of labor. 



In the laboratory work everything possible should be 



