INTRODUCTION. 9 



as this is the law of Biogenesis, which teaches that the indi- 

 vidual, recapitulating as he does in his own mental develop- 

 ment the mental evolution of the race, may most naturally and 

 advantageously acquire his knowledge in the same order in 

 which the race has acquired it. In the development of Botany, 

 physiology did not come first but last, and it followed after the 

 study of structure and classification. This does not at all mean 

 that all physiology is to be postponed to the end of the college 

 course, but simply that it should come there as a distinct 

 unified study, and also that whatever parts of it are introduced 

 earlier should be made to follow and depend upon concrete 

 structural study. The undergraduate course in Botany which 

 seems to me to give the optimum of advantages is the follow- 



ing: 



The first year, a general course, arranged to give a 

 synopsis of the subject to those who follow it no farther, 

 and a foundation for higher work to those who do. I 

 have tried to outline such a course in my ' ' Teaching 

 Botanist. ' 



The second year,--a course in morphology with correlated 



ecology, tracing the morphological characteristics and 



relationships of the groups from the lower Algx to the 



Phanerogams. 



The third year, a course in cellular anatomy, particularly 



of the higher plants, with cytology and embryology. 

 The fourth year, a practicum in physiology, on the prin- 

 ciple of that here outlined. 



It may be objected that such a course gives too much 

 routine work, and that after two, or at most three, years of 

 regular course work the students had better be given some 

 original problem in which their powers of investigation may be 

 cultivated. Aside from the great inherent difficulty of securing 

 investigation from undergraduates, it is also a fact that the 

 validity of this objection depends upon badness in the quality 

 of the teaching; for if the teaching be of the right sort, then all 



* Published by the Macmillan Co., N. Y.. 1899. 



