102 THE TEACHING BOTANIST 



class use. In any museum collection whatever, the 

 great guiding principle should be selection, not accumu- 

 lation ; and in plan and labelling the famous dictum 

 of Goode 1 should be remembered, that the modern 

 museum is a collection of labels illustrated by speci- 

 mens. The teaching collection need have no formal 

 beginning ; but as specimens from one source and 

 another are obtained, they should be properly pre- 

 pared and added. There are as yet no firms offering 

 for sale considerable numbers of museum specimens 

 of plants such as are offered of animals. 



It is of the greatest importance, however, that the 

 collection should grow upon some definite plan, as 

 otherwise half of its value is lost. One may, accord- 

 ing to his tastes or facilities, take as the leading 

 idea the illustration of the principles, either of mor- 

 phology, ecology, or the natural groups. An ideally 

 complete collection would include all three. Follow- 

 ing is a suggestion for a plan based upon that 

 which I have worked out for the collections under my 

 charge : 



1 There are valuable papers on Museum-making, by G. Brown Goode 

 in Science, New Series, Vol. II, p. 197, and Vol. Ill, p. 154. Particularly 

 apposite and most valuable, though I cannot agree with all of its recom- 

 mendations, is J. M. Macfarlane's " The Organization of Botanical Museums 

 for Schools, Colleges, and Universities," in Woods IIoll Biological Lectures 

 for 1894. Of much suggestiveness is Boyd Dawkins' address on the 

 Place of Museums, in Nature, July, 1892, p. 280. See also A T ature, 

 1895, P- I0 7- 



