184 THE NA TURE-STUD V RE FIE IV l3 . 6 - S ept. , . 9 o 7 



involves a more complete study of the flower structure for a mastery of the 

 idea than the book provides for. Work of this sort needs definite help from 

 the text, and can hardly be given satisfactorily as supplementary work. 



Chapter XI, "Pruning of Plants" sounds more like nursery business than 

 it is, for the first part of the chapter is rich in theory and purpose, from 

 an educative point of view. It also has some structural treatment of the 

 stem that might, with advantage, have been more organically united with part 

 of Chapter IX than it has been. The most of this chapter is along the 

 applied line and has considerable theory. 



The purpose in giving a detailed account of these three chapters is to 

 furnish a concrete example of a new tendency that may become a dominant 

 one in secondarv-school science. Where we would formerly have made a 

 vertical classification into chapters dealing with the seed, its structure and 

 physiology, with the flower and its functions, with the stem, its buds, 

 internal structure, and manner of working, with the abstract subject o 

 variation illustrated bv Darwinian or Burbankian examples; these authors 

 have cut the subject-matter in horizontal section, respectively, propagation of 

 plants, improvement of plants, and care of plants. 



The book shows some faults on the pedagogical side, especially relating to 

 the organization of details: (1) A lack of balance in many places, omitting 

 or barely mentioning some things that might seem to many to be essential, and 

 amplifying other things that hardly seem worth while. (2 ) An unevenness 

 of treatment in which difficult and easy facts are put on the same plane, or 

 on wrong planes, so far as treatment is concerned. This often results from 

 (3) lack of proper sequence, by which a term is sometimes made use of in a 

 vital wav, without being sufficiently discussed until a chapter or two later. 



"First Book of Farming." by C. L. Goodrich, is devoted exclusively to 

 Soil, and Soil Crops in the abstract, with little on particular kinds of crops. 

 "The object in presenting the book to the general public is the hope that it 

 may be of assistance to farmers, students and teachers, in their search for the 

 fundamental truths and principles," which are presented "in the order of 

 their importance, beginning with the most important." The last part of 

 this extract from the preface relates to the importance from the standpoint of 

 the agriculturist, and not from that of the scientist. While the author does 

 not claim to have written the book for use as a text, it has so much merit, 

 and will prove so helpful to inexperienced teachers, that it may well be con- 

 sidered in this connection. It is so divided that the underlying scientific facts 

 and principles are gathered together into Part I, while the actual farming 

 operations are deferred to Part II. Its chapter headings and arrangement of 

 subject-matter are more conventional than is the case with Jackson and 



