VOLNEY MORGAN SPALDING 



15 



the poor standards formerly prevailing. Botany, most of all 

 subjects in the high school curriculum, needed to be rescued from 

 its friends by whom it was regarded as being "especially adapted 

 for edifying the minds of young ladies" in seminaries, and was 

 taught by instructors whose learning did not extend much further 

 than Claytonia inrginica and Erythronium americanum. 



VOLNEY MORGAN SPALDING 



One of Professor Spalding's great services lay in giving scien- 

 tific training to those who would teach natural sciences in the 

 secondary schools, and in insisting that botany is a science of 

 such great usefulness that it should be taught by one who was 

 really prepared to do so. To appreciate the difficulties of scien- 



