ganongJ NATURE COURSES AND SCIENCE COURSES 243 



Seasons of flowering and ripening seeds in about 40 of our most 

 important torest, nut and ornamental trees; together with methods of 

 saving, storing and planting the seeds and rearing the trees. 



Function of forestry in controlling water flow and washing of soil. 



Outlawed weeds and poisonous plants. 



Native weeds in danger of extermination. 



Common ferns. 



Elementary agriculture and horticulture. 



Common mushrooms, edible and poisonous. 



Common parasitic fungi, blights, smuts, rusts, mildews, locally impor- 

 tant forms. 



Insects, life-histories and natural enemies of about 151 [probably a 

 misprint for 150] most important species. 



Economic status and foods of about 100 birds. 



Common amphibia, natural history and value as destroyers of insects. 



Important fresh-water fishes, food, spawning seasons and habitats. 



Every teacher of the usual scientific courses knows that a num- 

 ber of the topics in the above list, notably some of those relating 

 to hygiene, actually do find a place in their courses. But as to 

 the remainder, including the great majority, I maintain that they 

 are at present wholly impossible of profitable teaching in the 

 elementary courses of the schools and colleges of this country. 

 If our classes consisted of a very few pupils all eager to learn 

 (that ideal pupil which Professor Hodge, and especially that 

 arch-optimist of us all, Professor L. H. Bailey, seem to have 

 exclusively in mind in their writings and addresses) , and if they 

 all lived in places easily accessible to the country, and if they 

 could give well-nigh unlimited time to their biological studies, 

 and if they worked in the summer when the birds and the plants 

 are active, then indeed Professor Hodge's course might come 

 within the range of practicability. But, what are, in fact, the 

 conditions under which we must actually work? They are these: 

 solid blocks, often several of them, of thirty or more students — a 

 few of them interested, the majority indifferent, and some incapa- 

 ble of any effective teaching, hut all of whom must be kept con- 

 stantly busy, — in most cases working in the city with the country 

 inaccessibly remote, able to give but a few scattered hours per 

 week to the work, and in session only during the winter months 

 with a little of the spring and fall. Xow, if the reader will once 

 more look at Professor Hodge's course with these conditions in 

 mind, I think he will agree with me that the whole scheme is 

 simply impossible, the more especially as Professor Hodge would 

 himself be the first and most strenuous in insisting that his list 

 of field topices must be studied in the field and not in the labora- 

 tory. On the other hand our scientific courses in college and 



